Southwest Va. Counties Seek to Tap NatGas Pipeline for Locals
Tazewell County in southwestern Virginia produces the third-highest volume of natural gas in the state. A major gas pipeline, Enbridge’s East Tennessee Natural Gas (ETNG) System, runs through the county. Yet, businesses and residents have almost no access to natural gas. County officials are trying to change that with a proposal to tap into ETNG and run local delivery pipes to areas of the county where businesses are located. Tazewell and neighboring Russell County have just picked up $100,000 each from the recently approved state budget to study how to connect to natural gas.
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We’re just a few weeks away from the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) going online, flowing 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of yummy FRACKED natural gas from the Marcellus/Utica to southern Virginia and beyond. And that fact is driving the insane, unhinged left even more insane and unhinged. Yesterday, a man (who refused to identify himself as a man) tied himself to two barrels full of concrete in the middle of the road in the Bent Mountain (Roanoke County), VA, area, blocking access to an MVP work yard. The protester was spewing anti-Israel statements (a bigot and anti-Semite), along with nonsensical statements about the oil and gas industry. Truly unhinged. State police arrived to deal with the situation.
It’s clearly a case of sour grapes for the same three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circus clowns) who tried to block the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) by rendering arbitrary decisions that caused years of delays for the pipeline. We’re talking about Judge Stephanie Thacker, appointed by Barack Hussein Obama (she likes to quote from Dr. Seuss books in her opinions); Judge James Wynn, appointed by Barack Hussein Obama; and Chief Judge Roger Gregory, appointed by William Jefferson Clinton. All three are (in our opinion) corrupt and should immediately be impeached and removed from the bench. Congress finally had enough of their judicial malpractice in blocking MVP and passed a law overriding the clowns, signed into law by Joementia last June (see 
On May 1, a section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) near Roanoke, VA, failed (ruptured) during pressurized water testing conducted to ensure that there were no leaks or flaws (see 
We have to admit we’re disappointed. A section of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) ruptured during pressure testing last Wednesday in Roanoke County, Virginia, according to a report from the state’s environmental agency. A landowner observed sediment-laden water in her pasture on Wednesday morning and reported it to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). “The origin of the sediment-laden water reported in the complaint was from the rupture of a section of pipe during hydrostatic testing the morning of 5/1/2024,” wrote the DEQ expert, John McCutcheon.
In 2018, Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), proposed to extend MVP (when it’s done) by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The 75-mile extension is called MVP Southgate. Last year, Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend Southgate’s project timeline an extra three years. FERC agreed in December (see 
We never thought this day would arrive! We hoped. We prayed. But finally, it’s (almost) here. The 303-mile, 2 Bcf/d Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is almost ready to begin operation. On Monday, Equitrans Midstream filed a letter (below) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requesting a May 23 startup date for the pipeline. MVP (Equitrans) says the pipeline will be in the ground, buried, and ready to begin on May 22 (called “mechanically complete”). Get the champagne on ice and ready…
We think our headline about says it all. We’ve seen this type of thing many times before — out-of-town (actually, out-of-state) “protesters” show up and disrupt legal construction activity because, well, because they’re looney tunes. They’ve drunk the global warming Kool-Aid and are convinced, against all reason and rationality, that using natural gas and oil is going to destroy Mom Earth. This time around, it was a married couple well past their prime, a couple of old hippies making silly asses of themselves. They sat inside a huge plywood structure made to look like an opposum, blocking access to a Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) construction site in Virginia for several hours.
You have to hand it to the left. They never give up on their mission to destroy this country. Big Green groups using (abusing) six uppity Virginia landowners who didn’t want the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline to cross their well-groomed horse pastures have appealed a lawsuit recently dismissed by a federal court to the U.S. Supreme Court one last time. That is, if the Supremes decide to consider it again. It’s an open question if the Supremes will accept the case back.
Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved an Enbridge project to update its East Tennessee Natural Gas (ETNG) pipeline system. The project is referred to as the ETNG System Alignment Program Project, a project that heretofore was not on our radar screen. ETNG plans to add two electric compressor stations and pipeline capacity in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. In what has become a typical pattern, FERC Chairman Willie Phillips (Democrat) and Commissioner Mark Christie (Republican) voted to approve the project. Radicalized Commissioner Allison Clements (Democrat, former NRDC attorney) voted against approving the project.
In an embarrassing act of ignorance, seven Virginia state delegates and two state senators (all of them Democrats) who represent the greater Richmond, VA area signed a statement last Wednesday opposing Dominion Energy’s plan to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, a Richmond suburb (see 
Every major (and most minor) drillers in the Marcellus/Utica have, over the past couple of years, signed on to one or more of the responsible gas certification authorities. Responsible or “certified” or “differentiated” gas is gas that is produced with lower methane emissions as certified by an outside organization like Project Canary, MiQ, or Equitable Origin. Given certification reviews cost big money, you would think (hope) there are actually customers on the other end who *want* to buy the certified natgas, and may be willing to pay a premium to get it. Utility companies are some of those customers who want to buy certified gas in order to comply with various mandates to lower emissions. But certified gas comes at a price — a price that gets passed on to end-user customers. How do they feel about paying more for certified gas?
In a new low, anti-fossil fuelers who have tried and failed to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia (now 99% done) are now attacking the reputation and character of the Director of the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ), trying to slow things down with an ad hominem (“to the man” or “personal”) attack against the guy who oversees the environmental agency that has a partial role in watching over MVP. It’s shameful. DEQ Director Michael Rolband was appointed to his job by newly-elected Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2022, back when MVP was already 95% done but stalled due to repeated lawfare by Big Green and cooperative (corrupt) 4th Circuit judges. Even though MVP was already mostly done in Virginia, antis say because Rolband — who did some work for MVP in his prior career before heading DEQ — is somehow compromised or unethical and not doing his oversight job correctly now. Complete hogwash!
Once again, Big Green is attempting to illegally block the final bits of construction of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline as it travels through Roanoke County, VA. Yesterday, two “protesters” chained or otherwise attached themselves to an old (junk) car, a car made entirely from and with fossil fuels, blocking a road that leads to an MVP construction site. We grow tired of reporting these incidents and debated on whether or not to report this one. However, MDN readers deserve to know how the lawless left behaves. Plus, one of the so-called protesters looks like he (or she) is…well, you can fill in the blank.