Bent Mountain, VA – Impacted community members and Mountain Valley Watch monitors along the Mountain Valley Pipeline route met with federal pipeline safety agents on March 13, 2024. After eight months of requests for a visit, staff of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) met with nearly 40 community members in the community center of directly harmed Bent Mountain. Due to sustained community advocacy, Deputy Administrator Tristan Brown and key staff members attended the meeting in person.

Community members now request PHMSA staff to continue to meet with directly-impacted residents and return to the MVP route to conduct site visits with landowners present.

Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition (POWHR), responded:

“I am so proud of my community for advocating fiercely for our safety, including putting such sustained pressure on our regulators that PHMSA was compelled to do their job and show up on our doorstep. We deserve to be treated like our input matters, not only because our lives matter, but because after ten years of fighting this pipeline, we are extremely knowledgeable on matters of pipeline safety.”

On Monday morning, March 18, 2024, community members gathered near the regional Virginia Department of Environmental Quality office in Salem, Virginia to protest their inadequate response to destruction caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline. 

Deborah Kushner, climate activist, former state government employee, and long-time Virginia resident, responded:

“Who do you serve, DEQ? Following the egregious harms MVP has done to our mountains and streams, it is your duty and power to halt these harms and issue a stop work order. Yet you continue to side with the villainous corporation that your leader used to work for. You can be sure: we will never stop demanding you do your job.”

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