CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A group of activists in Charlotte gathered in Marshall Park on Thursday in protest of extending the Mountain Valley Pipeline from Virginia into North Carolina.
"We’re just kind of tired of being pushed aside,” said Crystal Cavalier-Keck, founder of the indigenous advocacy organization 7 Directions of Service.
The proposed extension of the Mountain Valley Pipeline would run 40 miles into North Carolina from Virginia.
"It's going through Rockingham County, North Carolina and ending in Alamance County North Carolina,” Cavalier-Keck said.
The project would allow for more natural gas transportation for energy companies, but Cavalier-Keck said it would dig up sacred burial grounds.
"These are the bones of our ancestors that are being disturbed, that are being dug up,” Cavalier-Keck said.
Cavalier-Keck believes it could also contaminate bodies of water in the state.
"We know these pipelines corrode over time, these things will leak into the rivers and then you know, after like years people start developing these weird cancers and it's because we have all these environmental degradations that are happening,” Cavalier-Keck said.
Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte NAACP, led the protest against the pipeline at Marshall Park on Thursday.
"We must believe in people over money and profit,” Mack said.
Activist Freeda Cathcart came all the way from Virginia to speak.
"The North Carolina state government needs to do everything you can to fight to protect the water, to fight to protect the families,” Cathcart said.
Shawn Day the spokesperson for the MVP project released this statement:
Federal and state authorities have recognized the MVP Southgate project is needed to meet public demand for natural gas in North Carolina. Dominion Energy North Carolina, a local natural gas distribution company, has added more than 100,000 new customers with no new supply source over the past decade, and local demand is expected to increase based on the state’s projections for continued population growth. North Carolina’s Utilities Commission has recognized MVP Southgate offers the best option for meeting that demand.
For the past three years, the MVP Southgate team has worked diligently with landowners, tribes, non-governmental organizations and federal, state and local officials to design a route that minimizes impacts to the environment. These efforts included extensive cultural and environmental survey work to identify any sensitive resources and found the project route would not affect any known burial grounds. In issuing its Final Environmental Impact Statement last year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded the project could be built safely and responsibly, with no permanent impacts to surface or ground water resources.
MVP Southgate has acquired more than 75 percent of required easements and looks forward to building this important infrastructure project to meet North Carolinians’ demand for more affordable and cleaner energy.
Still, on Thursday the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality denied water quality certification for the pipeline for a second time, saying it would pose an unnecessary risk for the state's streams, lakes, and wetlands.
Cavalier-Keck said it’s a small win.
"The ultimate win is this pipeline is canceled,” Cavalier-Keck said.
Day responded to the denial of the certification with this statement:
The MVP Southgate project met every North Carolina water quality standard required for state approval, and we strongly disagree with the NCDEQ’s decision to deny. A conditional approval, as the state’s hearing officer, recommended, would have satisfied the NCDEQ’s concerns about the separate Mountain Valley Pipeline project while recognizing the significant collaborative work by the project team and NCDEQ staff over the past two years to protect natural resources while meeting North Carolinians’ demand for natural gas.
Day said they are now evaluating all options for the next steps.
Contact Lana Harris at lharris@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and on Instagram.