Environmental Racism Defines the Virginia Ripoff Project

This blog post was written by Lynn Godfrey, Just Transition Program Manager with Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter and Pipeline Organizer for the Stop the Pipelines campaign. Lynn is from Hampton Roads and has been an environmental justice advocate for more than 20 years.

The house is on fire, and we continue to throw gasoline on it. The atmosphere temperature continues to rise, risking our very existence. The year 2023 was the hottest year on record threatening our goal of reaching and maintaining a livable atmospheric temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius.   

Additionally, fossil fuel companies are notorious for targeting under-resourced and over-burdened communities with their polluting, reckless projects. Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC is continuing this toxic legacy with the Virginia Reliability Ripoff Project (VRP), which began construction this summer

The VRP is threatening to increase emissions and pollutants in the majority Black environmental justice community of Petersburg by doubling the power of the Petersburg Compressor station’s operation in order to move fracked gas across the state from central Virginia to Chesapeake.

In 2022, Petersburg was ranked lowest in state-wide health rankings for the second year in a row. Petersburg is one of the poorest cities in Virginia; the city’s poverty rates are more than double the state average. The city is surrounded by industrial facilities, which have polluted the air and waterways.

Instead of electrifying the Petersburg Compressor Station, as the VRP is doing with ‘all’ other compressor stations for this project, it is furthering the use of fracked gas to operate the Petersburg Compressor Station. Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC could replace the gas units with electric units that would add capacity and improve air pollution, thus eliminating the negative impact on the community’s health. The fact that Columbia didn’t consider an electric option is a glaring insult and injustice to people in Petersburg.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) found that nearly 3,000 homes in environmental justice communities live in a 1-mile radius of the plant, where the greatest air pollution impacts will be felt. More than 10% of those individuals are estimated to already have asthma. FERC found VRP operations could increase Virginia-state emissions by more than 2%. It is important to note that these findings are calculated by a government agency that continues to permit needless and deadly fossil fuel projects despite widespread public opposition… and even they indirectly suggest that this project is not in alignment with Virginia’s climate goals.

Moreover, one of their own Commissioners, Allison Clements offered a very strong dissent on the community’s request for a rehearing of the Certificate of Public Necessity and Convenience, stating, "Although I concurred in part with the Certificate Order, I am persuaded by the Rehearing Request that the Commission’s NEPA review of the Projects’ GHG emissions, as well as the Commission’s resulting NGA section 7 determination, were legally deficient."

There’s no conceivable reason to worsen the pollution burden on Petersburg except for the reality that the fossil fuel industry does not care about our lives. These companies are sporadically electrifying compressor stations, but what the Southern Environmental Law suggests is that FERC requires electrification. 

In 2021, Indigenous water protectors and Black community organizers led the movement to stop the Lambert compressor station on the Mountain Valley Pipeline extension route. We can and will keep stopping this infrastructure from hurting us. 

The Petersburg compression station is one of eight fossil fuel projects planned for the state of Virginia, a state that is admired for defeating such needless polluters. From the frontline of the methane monster MVP, we are in solidarity with Petersburg residents who are galvanizing to defeat this compressor station.

The community is planning a CAMP (Community Air Monitoring Program) and needs volunteers to develop.  Please contact me directly, Lynn Godfrey at lynn.godfrey@sierraclub.org, if you are interested in volunteering.