Everyone who lives within miles of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) should be concerned about safety. The company assures us that the ACP will be safe. However, most of the area through which the ACP passes is considered “low consequence” because there are so few people and buildings per mile.

Years ago, Congress directed the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to put their emphasis on “high consequence” communities, and as a result, “low consequence” areas have been granted less safety.

A visit to www.phmsa.dot.gov/pipeline/psa/phmsa-progress-tracker-chart reveals that since at least 2011 the safety agency has not published requirements for “valve installation and minimum rupture detection standards” that have been under discussion. 

The timeline for rules on safety of gas transmission pipelines (PHMSA-2011-0023) is listed as “undetermined due to competing priorities.”

This means there is no requirement for safety valves. In our area these will be placed 20 miles apart.

When an accident happens, all of the high pressure gas in those 20 miles of pipe will have to burn off or escape into the atmosphere.  In “high consequence areas” valves are placed every three miles. 

Currently, integrity management applies only to “high consequence areas,” not rural areas. Also, three thicknesses of pipe are used — the thinnest in rural areas. 

Repeatedly, rural areas are ignored or subjected to lower safety standards.

The proposed federal budget will reduce agency funding even more. Not only will budget cuts come to PHMSA, which has never had adequate funding to meet its mandates and which a year ago faced a workforce in which half of its pipeline inspectors were new and untrained, but nearly a third of the Environmental Protection Agency funding will be removed.

Safety is being cut to make things easier for the energy industry at our expense.

There are fewer and fewer rural decision makers in Congress and the General Assembly. People in populated areas are clamoring for programs and services. Increasingly, many have the attitude that all rural people are lazy and overly dependent upon government.

They honestly view rural areas as sacrificial and appropriate places for dangerous infrastructure, wanting to send as few of “their” dollars to us as possible. In this environment, it is important that our communities look out for themselves in ways that have not been historically required.

Buckingham County has a final opportunity to require the ACP to use the best safety monitoring available at the compression station. It will make the decision Monday.

The ACP offered the county use of the communications tower to improve public safety communications. 

Accepting this and approving the tower will allow ACP to avoid installing fiber broadband at the compression station. It will sentence us to at least 50 years of pipeline system monitoring and management with only last-century technology. We deserve safety that is as good as people get in populated areas. Without fiber broadband, we cannot get it.

What happens with this compression station communications tower will affect the safety of everyone in Buckingham and along the entire ACP. Learn more. Speak up.

Irene Ellis Leech is from Mt. Rush in Buckingham. Her email address is ileech@vt.edu.