Two natural gas pipeline projects in Virginia and North Carolina put a lot at stake. Advocates say the biggest concern is availability of clean drinking water.
“Clean water is a bipartisan issue,” says Alice Broderick, Associate Director of Communications at American Rivers. “We understand that energy needs and water needs are important to communities, so we just want to find a way to ensure that these projects are executed in a way that we can continue to have healthy rivers for generations to come.”
American Rivers named the Dan the eighth-most endangered river in the country earlier this year. Because it flows through Virginia and North Carolina, the group is reaching out to leaders from both states to uphold Clean Water Act Standards throughout construction.
“It’s a chance for local, state, federal, and tribal leaders to come together to ensure the health of a river,” Broderick says.
This isn’t the first time the river has faced a major threat. In 2014, a Duke Energy stormwater pipe ruptured, releasing 39,000 tons of toxic coal ash and 27 million gallons of wastewater into the Dan River in North Carolina.
Tiffany Haworth, Executive Director of the Dan River Basin Association, or DRBA, wasn’t exactly surprised to see the river on the endangered list.
“We have learned that our river can recover,” Haworth says referring to the 2014 coal ash spill. “But the cumulative effect of dozens and dozens of these projects can have a very negative impact on our watershed, in which over a million people get their drinking water.”
The Dan isn’t the only river in the region on the list of America’s Most Endangered. The Potomac is at the top of the group's list due to a recent sewage spill into the river and the proliferation of data centers in the region. Those data centers use large volumes of water to cool their operations.
