SPRING HOPE, NC -- Over 60 people joined the Sierra Club, Sound Rivers, and 350 Triangle for a trip down the Tar River today, paddling past the survey marks for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline to highlight just how bad the project could be for North Carolina’s waterways and wetlands. A project of Duke Energy and Dominion Energy, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would carry fracked gas from West Virginia through Virginia and North Carolina. In North Carolina alone, the pipeline would cross over 560 waterways, threatening the economic, recreational and physical health of the communities in its path and downstream. The event was timed to coincide with a critical comment period where North Carolinians are able to submit comments to the Department of Environmental Quality regarding their concerns with the project’s impacts on water quality. The comment period for the water quality certification closes August 19th.
"North Carolina's waterways are vital to our economy, culture and way of life,” said Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Heather Deck. “Why would we put our rivers, streams and wetlands at risk to build a fracked gas pipeline that we don't even need? We shouldn't threaten the drinking water of people to increase the profits of polluters," she added.
The science is clear, from extraction to production to consumption, fracked gas is a dirty fuel that produces significant amounts of pollution. In fact, methane gas is 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years it is in the atmosphere. Other gas projects, like the Rover pipeline, have produced one construction accident after another, leaking drilling fluid into waterways and gas into the air we breathe. Even when operating properly, gas projects leak methane at every stage and the byproduct of its combustion threatens our health and our climate. Additionally, Duke Energy would have to seize private property in order to build the pipeline.
"The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is dirty and dangerous and I don't want my land seized to build it,” said Marvin Winstead, a local farmer fighting Duke Energy’s expected seizure of his land. “We don't need to pump fracked gas through our communities when clean, renewable energy sources are so abundant and getting more and more affordable," he added.
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About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.