Dear Editor,
Salem City Council’s November 8 meeting deserves explanation. Concerned citizens used their five minutes to explain why council’s action on November 25 was insufficient.
Council was asked to endorse EPA’s letter to the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) recommending non-approval of MVP’s new Clean Water Act permit because it did not meet requirements. Councilman Foley instead proposed that Council resubmit their resolution 1324 from 2017 during MVP’s first permitting.
That resolution contained good points: Virginia should enforce environmental and stormwater laws, hold pipeline construction to the same local standards, requested bonds for construction, use native plant restoration, no wet open-cut trenching on waterbody crossings, preserve natural land cover and not exceed 500 feet open-cuts at once.
Problematic provisions: “If additional sedimentation is not mitigated, then Salem requests that the sedimentation limits for Salem be increased by the amount of sediment load created by the pipeline” and that all crossings “be by boring which massively pollute our upland streams (130 of them.)” These two provisions together ignore pollution and other harms occurring since then dirtying our beloved Roanoke River and Greenway and give MVP material to say: “Salem accepts MVP pollution and recommends borings. Those provisions together oppose clean river and drinking water that everyone wants.
Since 2017, we learned that MVP’s proposed environmentally-damaging borings would deposit massive sediment next to stream-crossings. Citizens opposed borings and harms our protected Roanoke logperch – the pride of Roanoke Valley – who require clean water at all stages of its lifecycle and underwent a 30-year recovery plan.
While participating in the Fort Lewis DAR Salem Greenway cleanup, I heard many thank-you’s so it’s obvious that without exception everyone wants clean water.
Council’s unanimous vote to resubmit their 2017 resolution needs context for the Board’s December 14 permit decision. MVP and DEQ failed to follow any of our local water concerns without any tax compensation, bonds, or insurance. If MVP explodes in karst-ridden Dixie Caverns’ area, it could burn up critical infrastructure like I 81, US 460, the railroad, or the integrity of Spring Hollow dam and clog up 4th and Main Streets for long-periods. Listening requires collaboration to amplify leaders’ actions.
The cover letter failed to explain that MVP and DEQ ignored Salem’s requests–explaining unacceptably high violations documented in AG Herring’s consent decree. All scientific and expert warnings over which concerned citizens labored, were ignored in this project. Now, the chickens are coming home to roost with landslides, massive erosion and destruction of pristine Appalachian streams.
Council should escalate action to protect their constituents’ safety and MVP harms that in no way justify the unacceptable MVP environmental degradation with zero benefits – only higher heating costs.
Please protect Salem from a horrific project that will endure for decades and occupy Council’s governance instead of continuing to improve Salem. We don’t need to live next to an explosive MVP bomb that requires that we pray for safety every time we drive MVP – crossed thoroughfares with MVP’s one-mile diameter incineration zones.
- Cynthia Munley, Mothers Out Front and Preserve Salem Chair
