Workshop set for compressor station
Published 12:39 pm Tuesday, February 2, 2016
- Residents and Friends of Buckingham members Kenda Hanuman, left, and Annie Lou Parr protest the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline before the third community advisory group meeting.
A public information workshop for the proposed 40,715-horsepower natural gas-fired compressor station proposed for Buckingham County is set for Tuesday, Feb. 16, from 5-7:30 p.m. at the county’s middle school.
The compressor station is part of Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) LLC’s proposal — pending federal approval — to construct a natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina.
The project, if approved, would result in a 42-inch pipeline buried through Buckingham and parts of Cumberland and Prince Edward counties. The project is a joint venture being led by Dominion.
The announcement of details of the workshop came after the third and final Buckingham County Compressor Station Community Advisory Group, held on Thursday evening.
“The format … will be similar to the open houses we held last year,” said Dominion spokesman Aaron Ruby. “Individual stations will be set up to provide information about various aspects of the project, including land, construction, engineering, environmental and safety. The format is intended to give the public the chance to meet one-on-one with different project team members so we can answer their questions and focus on any particular issues they would like us to address.”
He said the focus of the workshop will be the compressor station “and the different ways the Community Advisory Group has helped shape the design of the facility, but there will also be plenty of general project information.”
Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC released a conceptual rendering of its proposed 40,715-horsepower compressor station facility during a community advisory group meeting on Thursday. The facility would include several buildings, including compressor buildings, an auxiliary building, an office building, a regulator building, a tank farm, a dekatherm building and a communications tower. (Graphic courtesy Atlantic Coast Pipeline)
“We’re not pleased at all,” said Kenda Hanuman, a spokeswoman for Friends of
Buckingham (FOB), a group opposed to the project. “They continue to do the same thing.”
She said that many concerned residents in the region — and FOB — will “push back” and be present at the workshop.
During the Thursday advisory group meeting, members of community, along with Dominion and ACP representatives, discussed details of the proposed compressor station, including site features, walls and fencing, colors of facilities and components, buffers, height and location of the communications tower, building specifics, landscaping and the construction process. Members discussed the details in small breakout groups.
ACP, LLC owns about 68.5 acres to build the proposed gas-fired compressor station for the proposed interstate natural gas transmission pipeline. The land is just northwest of the Union Hill community along Route 56 just southeast of Shelton Store Road. The planned pipeline would cross and connect to an existing Transco interstate natural gas pipeline on the parcel of land, according to Dominion.
“Who is the community here,” said Chad Oba, FOB chair, during the meeting. “Who are the people that are really impacted?”
“It’s like Dominion Power is saying ‘Nothing will stop this [project.]’ I mean, I’m just calling it the way I see it,” said Paul Wilson, a pastor at two churches in the vicinity of the proposed compressor station. “‘Our focus’ appears to be Dominion’s focus. Our focus just does not match up with Dominion’s.”
“There was an idea to have a community advisory group to get constructive feedback for the site features and aesthetics,” said Patty Rusten, the advisory group coordinator, who works for the Natural Resource Group. “And you were invited to participate and you agreed to participate. And that’s what the focus of this group is.”
“Your message is you’re going to find a way around it, that the pipeline is still coming, that the compressor station is still coming … That is your underlying message to this whole community,” Wilson said.
“We’re not trying to convince anybody of anything,” said Dominion staff member Carla Picard. “And I don’t think that there’s anything that we won’t talk about.”
“Our underlying message should be that we have customers that have to come us and said ‘Here’s what we need.’ So, we want to try and deliver what those customers need in a way that minimizes. We can’t eliminate every impact, but we want to minimize the impacts to every extent possible,” she said.
“We recognize that there are always going to be some folks that don’t like it [or] don’t want it or are never going to be convinced.”
“We will share all of this feedback at the informational workshop in a couple weeks and hopefully gain some additional input from the rest of the community,” Ruby said of the advisory group meetings.
