The Mountain Valley Pipeline is continuing to defend its plan to build a natural gas compressor station in Montgomery County. The company says it’s necessary to transport more gas, but the project is seeing increasing opposition from residents, local officials and advocacy groups.
Gary Brown and his wife live in a two-story farmhouse. They have chickens out back. It’s lovely and peaceful on his porch. But their home is less than 2,000 feet from where MVP’s Swann compressor station would go.
“My wife has asthma. We are directly downwind of the proposed compressor station,” Brown explains, gesturing to the field beside their home.
Brown and his wife moved here in 2020 from out of state. They love the quiet and the mountain landscape. But then, during the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline mainline, the company ran equipment day and night, right in front of their front porch.
“Their nightlights shining really bright through our bedroom windows,” Brown recalls. “And noise 24 hours a day.”
Brown says if federal regulators approve the compressor station, they’ll try to move because he doesn’t want his wife’s asthma to get worse.
“And we love Virginia,” Brown says. “If we are forced to move, I don’t know where we’d move to.”
The Browns live on Cove Hollow Road, a neighborhood off Route 460 in Elliston where over 90 people live. Everyone in this area who spoke with Radio IQ said they’re afraid of the compressor station going here but feel powerless to stop it.
That includes Angie, a grandmother raising her grandchildren who is a cancer survivor. She didn’t want us to use her last name because she’s afraid she may get pushback from the Mountain Valley Pipeline for speaking out.
“There’s a lot of elder people in the holler that has health issues,” Angie says. “And there’s younger people as well, with children.”
More than 40% of families near the proposed site have someone with a health condition, including asthma, cancer or lung disease, according to a study by Virginia Tech researchers.
The compressor station would emit particulate matter and volatile organic compounds. Mountain Valley Pipeline says emission levels will be lower than what’s legally allowed. But Karen Campblin, chair of the Virginia Counsel on Environmental Justice, says pollution can make medical issues worse.
“If a community is too sick to work, that limits the socio and economic advancement of that community and the individuals within them,” Campblin says.
Two members of the environmental justice council recently visited Elliston to hear from residents. Campblin says they are writing a letter to Governor Abigail Spanberger, sharing concerns they have with the project.
“And so, it is very important to have that environmental justice focus in order to make sure that not one community is overburdened with the progress of a society as a whole,” Campblin says.
In addition to the air pollution, residents in Elliston have another concern with the compressor station: a Norfolk Southern rail line runs right through this area, and their only road in or out is often blocked by trains.
Residents are asking, what happens if there’s an incident, like a fire or a gas explosion, at the compressor station when the track is blocked? Emergency vehicles couldn’t get in or out.
Dan Burroughs lives in Cove Hollow, and had trouble one night, years ago, when he needed emergency surgery on his appendix.
“My wife was trying to get me to the hospital, to the emergency room, the railroad was blocked,” Burroughs recalls.
Luckily, after several calls to emergency dispatchers, the train was eventually moved, and Burroughs was able to get to a hospital in time.
“But that time delay for me worked out ok. What if there was a fire up in here? Or a heart attack? That extra 15 minutes could cost somebody their lives,” Burroughs says. “Could cause a house to be completely burned down.”
In a recent letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, MVP acknowledges there is a safety issue with the blocked trains, and says they are working with Montgomery County to fix the problem. But the company didn’t offer any details on how they are doing that and did not respond to an email from Radio IQ asking for specifics.
911 dispatchers recorded 14 calls in the past six years from people unable to access Cove Hollow because of stopped trains.
County supervisors wrote a letter to FERC last December, saying they have health and safety concerns with the project’s location, including the blocked crossing at Cove Hollow. Virginia regulators cited that letter as the reason they are suspending a state air permit that MVP would need to be able to run the compressor station.
Montgomery County has applied for a federal grant to study the situation, and they could learn if they were approved by this fall.
The Federal Railroad Administration says Norfolk Southern has also blocked a nearby road in Elliston, called Cannery Road, over 20 times just in the past year.
A Norfolk Southern spokesperson emailed the following statement explaining why their trains occasionally block roadways:
“We make every effort to avoid inconveniencing communities with blocked crossings. Our business relies on our ability to keep our trains moving safely, and that’s always the goal. Nevertheless, trains may have to stop for a number of reasons, including congestion on the tracks or in yards, coordinating traffic with other railroads, power outages affecting train signal devices, or mechanical issues. The blue sign at railroad crossings contains contact information for the railroad that owns the track and can be used to get in touch with us directly in the event of an emergency. You can find some information about ways we work to avoid and address blocked crossing issues here.”
