Waxing full moon over the Greenbrier River.

Photo Louanne Fatora

Biden-Harris Administration Strengthens Proposal to Cut Methane Pollution

Stronger standards would reduce harmful emissions and energy waste from covered sources by 87 percent below 2005 levels while delivering economic benefits

November 11, 2022 |EPA Press Office |EPA

Today [November 11, 2022] at COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is strengthening its proposed standards to cut methane and other harmful air pollution. If finalized, these critical, commonsense standards will protect workers and communities, maintain and create high-quality, union-friendly jobs, and promote U.S. innovation and manufacturing of critical new technologies, all while delivering significant economic benefits through increased recovery of wasted gas.

The updates, which supplement proposed standards EPA released in November 2021, reflect input and feedback from a broad range of stakeholders and nearly half a million public comments. The updates would provide more comprehensive requirements to reduce climate and health-harming air pollution, including from hundreds of thousands of existing oil and gas sources nationwide. It would promote the use of innovative methane detection technologies and other cutting-edge solutions, many of which are being developed and deployed by small businesses providing good-paying jobs across the United States.

The new proposal also includes a ground-breaking “Super-Emitter Response Program” that would require operators to respond to credible third-party reports of high-volume methane leaks. The agency estimates that in 2030, the proposal would reduce methane from covered sources by 87 percent below 2005 levels.

“The United States is once again a global leader in confronting the climate crisis, and we must lead by example when it comes to tackling methane pollution – one of the biggest drivers of climate change. We’re listening to public feedback and strengthening our proposed oil and gas industry standards, which will enable innovative new technology to flourish while protecting people and the planet,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “Our stronger standards will work hand in hand with the historic level of resources from the Inflation Reduction Act to protect our most vulnerable communities and to put us on a path to achieve President Biden’s ambitious climate goals.”

Oil and natural gas operations are the nation’s largest industrial source of methane. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, on average, over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere and is responsible for approximately one third of the warming from greenhouse gases occurring today. Sharp cuts in methane emissions are among the most critical actions the U.S. can take in the short term to slow the rate of climate change. Oil and natural gas operations are also significant sources of other health-harming air pollutants, including smog-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic air pollutants such as benzene.

The Clean Air Act standards in the supplemental proposal will complement President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provides resources for financial and technical assistance and a waste emissions charge for applicable oil and gas facilities that exceed statutorily specified waste emissions thresholds. The Inflation Reduction Act incentivizes early implementation of innovative methane reduction technologies and supports methane mitigation and monitoring activities, allowing the United States to achieve greater methane emissions reductions more quickly.

EPA will take comment on the supplemental proposal until February 13, 2023. The agency will host virtual trainings to provide communities, Tribes and small businesses information about the supplemental proposal and about participating in the public comment process. Those trainings will be November 17 and 30, 2022 and registration information is available on EPA’s website. EPA will hold a virtual public hearing January 10 and 11, 2023. Registration for the public hearing will open after the supplemental proposal is published in the Federal Register. EPA intends to issue a final rule in 2023.

Story has been edited for length. Full story HERE

COP27 Climate Summit in Egypt "Week in Pictures" HERE

Six Years On, Researchers Studying Greenbrier County Flood Resiliency, Response Efforts

November 7, 2022 |Shepherd Snyder|WV Public Broadcasting

Six years have passed since the 2016 flood in southern West Virginia that killed 23 people and ravaged communities like White Sulphur Springs and Rainelle. Despite that, researchers say the state does not have a long-term flood recovery plan.

Reporter Shepherd Snyder spoke with WVU researcher and assistant professor of geography Jamie Shinn on her project studying how residents of Greenbrier County recovered from the flood, and how the results could shape more effective flood responses both at the state and national levels in the future.

Snyder: Getting started, I was wondering if you could tell me about this research project and what the research process will look like.

Shinn: We'll be focusing on two towns within Greenbrier County: Rainelle and White Sulphur Springs. And we'll be engaging with community members through a variety of tools. So we'll do a countywide survey that any resident over the age of 18 is welcome to take, we'll do some more targeted focus groups with people who were involved in both the response and recovery to the flood as well as impacted by the flood. And then we’ll take some interviews with people at regional, state and national levels who were involved or represent organizations that were involved in flood response and recovery. And our goal in doing that is to answer three research questions.

We're now several years out from the flood. And yet we know that communities are continuing to deal with the lingering impacts in the recovery process. What we've been told by people on the ground is that we have yet to systematically document the lessons learned from the flood, how response in recovery went, what went well, what could have gone better, so that we can better prepare for future floods. And we only need to look as far as Eastern Kentucky in recent months to know that these types of things are likely to happen again in the region. And so we have kind of three overarching goals with the stage one project. The first is to identify gaps in organizational capacity that we can fill to create a more robust flood response and long term recovery. So what do local first responders need to be equipped to respond as quickly and as effectively as possible? What do community and county level groups need? And what do national level groups need? How can we make sure that every group at every scale has the best capacity possible to respond? And then what is the cross-organizational capacity building and coordination that we can do between these groups?

So for instance, in the 2016 flood, we know that all sorts of actors responded, we had voluntary first responders, trained first responders, National Guard, FEMA, Red Cross but also a huge amount of volunteers coming in and faith based organizations. We have the Appalachian service project, we have the Mennonite disaster committee, who spent years in these communities helping to rebuild and respond. Our question is, is there a better way, we can in advance coordinate among these groups to make sure that our response and recovery is as effective and efficient as possible in the future?

The third question that we're trying to answer is, what knowledge do people need that they don't have access to, to best plan for these events? And so for that, we're working with our partners at the West Virginia GIS Technical Center, which is a state organization that's housed here at WVU, to do a participatory GIS mapping exercise, where these GIS experts are going to present and also build new flood risk tools. So these might look like flood risk maps, or 3D imaging of what a particular part of town will look like under different flood scenarios. We would bring these to the community focus groups and ask people to respond to them (with questions like): “Are they useful? Do they contain the information they need? Are they user friendly?” And then come back to the drawing board and re-create these tools with that feedback in mind.

So the stage two vision that we’ll propose to the National Science Foundation in the spring is to use whatever we learned in stage one through these different methods. So from the survey from the focus groups, from interviews, from the mapping, to build out what we're calling the West Virginia Flood Resilience Framework. And the vision for the framework is that it will be an online toolkit accessible to anybody to use. This could be for residents, but it could also be for local government agencies, nonprofits or the state resilience office.

Story continues HERE

MVP pipe in water near a home in Franklin County, VA: according to a local landowner, this pipe was left in a trench that sometimes filled with water up to 2 feet high, for more than a year, until the trench was dewatered.

Preserve Bent Mountain

Mountain Valley Pipeline: "Uniquely Risky"

November 3, 22|Amy Mall|NRDC

Steel pipelines used to transport fossil fuels are prone to corrosion. Contaminants in oil or gas, such as hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, can cause corrosion on the inside of the pipes. Rain and dew can cause corrosion on the exterior of pipes when they are stored outdoors. Soil constituents and groundwater can cause corrosion on the exterior of pipes when they are buried beneath the surface, with wet areas more susceptible to corrosion than dry areas. Corrosion in a pipeline is extremely dangerous, leading to catastrophic explosions and death. Indeed, corrosion problems are the second greatest cause of pipeline failures.

Fortunately, coatings can be applied to pipes to help protect against corrosion. Ideally, pipes are coated both internally and externally to protect from both types of corrosion. Unfortunately, federal regulations only require external coatings for oil and gas pipelines. And pipe coating is not permanent or indestructible. It has to be carefully maintained to retain its protective qualities. If coated pipes are stored outdoors and exposed to the elements, the pipe coating can degrade due to rain, wind, and—especially—ultraviolet (UV) rays from sunlight. As coating degrades, its protective function also diminishes. Even a tiny imperfection in the coating can create a concentrated area of accelerated corrosion.

The rate and extent of coating degradation will vary by the particular circumstances at a site, but according to the National Association of Pipe Coating Applicators: “Above ground storage of coated pipe in excess of 6 months without additional Ultraviolet protection is not recommended.”

Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a partially completed pipeline that would have high explosive risk if it is completed and enters operation. Its large diameter and high pressure are enough to make it a higher risk pipeline than most other gas transmission pipelines. This risk is further increased by the steepness of the Appalachian mountain slopes it would traverse for long distances. MVP is designed to traverse 75 miles of the steepest slopes in Appalachia and more than 200 miles with “high landslide susceptibility,” which places it at higher risk for explosions. This has never before been attempted for a large gas pipeline. 

MVP is perhaps the riskiest new pipeline construction project in the country. Indeed, it’s been called “uniquely risky” by an environmental hydrologist. This is not a hypothetical risk. MVP has already caused dozens of “slips” where a slope has become unstable, including slopes outside of the pipeline’s right-of-way. And, in 2019, MVP itself reported that a landslide along the pipeline route “progressed to the point where a residence directly downslope is unsafe to be occupied.” 

Leaving pipeline inspection and repair up to the pipeline company is simply wrong.

These pipes are sitting on private property that belongs to real people who live in what is known as the “blast zone”—the distance from an explosion where death or serious injury is likely. And they won’t be able to sleep at night knowing that a pipeline company that has been fined millions of dollars for hundreds of state alleged violations is allowed to decide how to address the risks associated with deteriorating pipe coating that has been exposed to the elements for far too long.

Story has been edited for length. Full story HERE

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is planned to span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia.

Mountain Valley Pipeline developers hoping for an act of Congress; West Virginia reps remain supportive

November 7, 2022 |Charles Young|The State Journal

The developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline are hoping an act of Congress can help them finish the long-delayed project by the end of next year.

During Equitrans Midstream’s recent third quarter earnings call, chairman and CEO Thomas Karam said passing federal energy project permitting reform is the “best path” to seeing the natural gas transmission line finished in 2023.

“There continues to be significant, bipartisan support for federal energy infrastructure permitting reform legislation,” Karam said. “The litigation and regulatory issues present for critical natural gas infrastructure projects like MVP, combined with global events, clearly highlight the need for expeditious action by Congress on federal permitting reform legislation as the best path to complete the MVP project in 2023.”

A condition of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of the Southgate project in 2020 was that construction of the extension would not begin until the company received the required federal permits for the mainline system and the Director of the Office of Energy Projects, or its designee, lifted a stop-work order and authorized the project.

Earlier this year, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., fought for inclusion of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022 in a Senate spending package that had to be passed by the end of September.

The spending package only advanced after Manchin asked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to remove the permitting bill.

The permitting legislation, which was promised to Manchin by Schumer over the summer during negotiations that led to passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, included provisions that would have mandated the timely completion of the MVP.

Natalie Cox, vice president of communications and corporate affairs for Equitrans Midstream, in an email to WV News shortly after Manchin requested the bill be removed, said the developers were disappointed but were determined to press on.

“While we are disappointed that the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022 will not receive a vote at this time, MVP’s path to completion has not changed,” Cox wrote.

Story continues HERE

The inconvenient truth of Herman Daly: There is no economy without environment

November 10, 2022 | Jon D. Erickson|The Conversation

Herman Daly had a flair for stating the obvious. When an economy creates more costs than benefits, he called it “uneconomic growth.” But you won’t find that conclusion in economics textbooks. Even suggesting that economic growth could cost more than it’s worth can be seen as economic heresy.

The renegade economist, known as the father of ecological economics and a leading architect of sustainable development, died on Oct. 28, 2022, at the age of 84. He spent his career questioning an economics disconnected from an environmental footing and moral compass.

In an age of climate chaos and economic crisis, his ideas that inspired a movement to live within our means are increasingly essential.

The seeds of an ecological economist

Herman Daly grew up in Beaumont, Texas, ground zero of the early 20th century oil boom. He witnessed the unprecedented growth and prosperity of the “gusher age” set against the poverty and deprivation that lingered after the Great Depression.

To Daly, as many young men then and since believed, economic growth was the solution to the world’s problems, especially in developing countries. To study economics in college and export the northern model to the global south was seen as a righteous path.

But Daly was a voracious reader, a side effect of having polio as a boy and missing out on the Texas football craze. Outside the confines of assigned textbooks, he found a history of economic thought steeped in rich philosophical debates on the function and purpose of the economy.

Unlike the precision of a market equilibrium sketched on the classroom blackboard, the real-world economy was messy and political, designed by those in power to choose winners and losers. He believed that economists should at least ask: Growth for whom, for what purpose and for how long?

Daly’s biggest realization came through reading marine biologist Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring,” and seeing her call to “come to terms with nature … to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature but of ourselves.” By then, he was working on a Ph.D. in Latin American development at Vanderbilt University and was already quite skeptical of the hyperindividualism baked into economic models. In Carson’s writing, the conflict between a growing economy and a fragile environment was blindingly clear.

After a fateful class with Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Daly’s conversion was complete. Georgescu-Roegen, a Romanian-born economist, dismissed the free market fairy tale of a pendulum swinging back and forth, effortlessly seeking a natural state of equilibrium. He argued that the economy was more like an hourglass, a one-way process converting valuable resources into useless waste.

Herman Daly explains ‘uneconomic growth.’

Daly became convinced that economics should no longer prioritize the efficiency of this one-way process but instead focus on the “optimal” scale of an economy that the Earth can sustain. Just shy of his 30th birthday in 1968, while working as a visiting professor in the poverty-stricken Ceará region of northeastern Brazil, Daly published “On Economics as a Life Science.”

His sketches and tables of the economy as a metabolic process, entirely dependent on the biosphere as source for sustenance and sink for waste, were the road map for a revolution in economics.

Economics of a full world

Daly spent the rest of his career drawing boxes in circles. In what he called the “pre-analytical vision,” the economy – the box – was viewed as the “wholly owned subsidiary” of the environment, the circle.

When the economy is small relative to the containing environment, a focus on the efficiency of a growing system has merit. But Daly argued that in a “full world,” with an economy that outgrows its sustaining environment, the system is in danger of collapse.

While a professor at Louisiana State University in the 1970s, at the height of the U.S. environmental movement, Daly brought the box-in-circle framing to its logical conclusion in “Steady-State Economics.” Daly reasoned that growth and exploitation are prioritized in the competitive, pioneer stage of a young ecosystem. But with age comes a new focus on durability and cooperation. His steady-state model shifted the goal away from blind expansion of the economy and toward purposeful improvement of the human condition.

The international development community took notice. Following the United Nations’ 1987 publication of “Our Common Future,” which framed the goals of a “sustainable” development, Daly saw a window for development policy reform. He left the safety of tenure at LSU to join a rogue group of environmental scientists at the World Bank.

For the better part of six years, they worked to upend the reigning economic logic that treated “the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation.” He often butted heads with senior leadership, most famously with Larry Summers, the bank’s chief economist at the time, who publicly waved off Daly’s question of whether the size of a growing economy relative to a fixed ecosystem was of any importance. The future U.S. treasury secretary’s reply was short and dismissive: “That’s not the right way to look at it.”

But by the end of his tenure there, Daly and colleagues had successfully incorporated new environmental impact standards into all development loans and projects. And the international sustainability agenda they helped shape is now baked into the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals of 193 countries, “a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity.”

In 1994, Daly returned to academia at the University of Maryland, and his life’s work was recognized the world over in the years to follow, including by Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award, the Netherlands’ Heineken Prize for Environmental Science, Norway’s Sophie Prize, Italy’s Medal of the Presidency, Japan’s Blue Planet Prize and even Adbuster’s person of the year.

Today, the imprint of his career can be found far and wide, including measures of the Genuine Progress Indicator of an economy, new Doughnut Economics framing of social floors within environmental ceilings, worldwide degree programs in ecological economics and a vibrant degrowth movement focused on a just transition to a right-sized economy.

I knew Herman Daly for two decades as a co-author, mentor and teacher. He always made time for me and my students, most recently writing the foreword to my upcoming book, “The Progress Illusion: Reclaiming Our Future from the Fairytale of Economics.” I will be forever grateful for his inspiration and courage to, as he put it, “ask the naive, honest questions” and then not be “satisfied until I get the answers.”

Original story HERE

Frontline Communities Unite Again to Stop Manchin’s Pipeline Bill

Senator Joe Manchin is trying to pass his Energy Independence and Security Act again after he asked Senator Chuck Schumer to remove it from the Continuing Resolution hours before the Senate vote on September 27th. He is trying to get it into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).Days ahead of his speech at COP27, President Joe Biden said he hopes that Congress will support Manchin’s bill being part of the NDAA. An analysis by Oil Change International revealed that emissions from fossil fuel projects that would be helped by Manchin’s legislation are 665 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent per year – more than five times the potential emissions savings from transmission lines waiting on the permits.

Frontline communities united to stop the legislation in August and September. We are once again mobilizing to stop this bill from entering any must-pass legislation in Congress.

On Tuesday, November 15 at 7:00 PM ET, Climate Action Now will host a discussion on the legislation with frontline leaders and long-time pipeline resistors. 

On Thursday, November 17 at 8:00 PM ET, the People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition will host a post-Election update on our fight to stop the legislation.



To stay updated on the many other actions planned in opposition of this bill, follow POWHR, 7 Directions, and People vs. Fossil Fuels on social media. This page will also be updated with upcoming actions.

Maximizing Our Wins: Getting the Most Out of Our Congressional Victories

Join Appalachian Voices for their next virtual 25th Anniversary celebration event.

Appalachian Voices scored major federal victories in 2021 and 2022, with billions of dollars slated by legislation for coal reclamation, economic development in coal-impacted communities, and clean energy transition funding. And this fall, our movement stopped one dangerous bill that attempted to fast-track the Mountain Valley Pipeline and weaken environmental protections.

Join on Thursday, November 17 at 1:00 PM ET to hear how they are working to prevent the Mountain Valley Pipeline provisions from being attached to any other bill and ensure new federal programs make the biggest impact for Appalachian communities.

REGISTER FOR THE ZOOM HERE

***ACT NOW ~ Comments or Phone a Rep ***

One of our board members will be in DC on Thursday as a WV constituent to lobby with a national group for the Environmental Justice Act. Any calls to our representatives to voice concerns over water quality especially in low income or rural areas during Thursday would be appreciated.

Joe Manchin DC office phone : 202-224-3954

Shelley Capito DC office phone : 202-224-6472

If you would like to add a comment to deliver to our representatives, please send it to:

denielliot@yahoo.com by Thursday morning.

Gifting Season is upon us!

A donation to the Greenbrier River Watershed Association could be the perfect gift for your special someone. If you'd like to donate, you can do so HERE, or mail a check with your information to:

G.R.W.A. at PO Box 1419, Lewisburg, WV, 24901

FERC Monthly Virtual Open Meeting

November 17, 2022 @ 10:00 AM

Virtual Open Meeting

Commission meeting held in Commission Meeting Room (Room 2C) at FERC Headquarters, 888 First St. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20426

A   free live webcast is available for this meeting from 10:00 am - 11:00 am. All webcasts are archived for 3 months. Full info HERE  

Volunteer

Make your time count by volunteering with your favorite non-profit to do any number of things from helping with river cleanups, to monitoring rivers and creeks, to making phone calls or licking envelopes. You make a difference.

Follow these pages 

WV Rivers ~ WV Rivers is the statewide voice for water-based recreation and clean, drinkable, swim-able, and fishable rivers and streams-from the headwaters to wherever water flows in West Virginia. 

Appalachian Voices ~ The Appalachian Voice has covered environmental, outdoor and cultural news in the Appalachian mountains since 1996. We provide thorough and well-researched journalistic news coverage to fit a niche not often covered by standard news media.

New River Conservancy ~ Protecting the water, woodlands and wildlife of the New River Watershed. River Clean Ups

Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance ~ Protecting the heritage, resources and economy of the Allegheny-Blue Ridge region.

WV Environmental Council ~ Facilitate communication and cooperation among citizens in promoting environmental protection in West Virginia, to assist in organizing grass roots groups, to facilitate interaction among established environmental organizations, and to correspond with all appropriate local, state, and federal agencies involved in the management of West Virginia's environment. 

Wild Virginia ~ Along with our partners, alliances, and citizens like you, we press on in the fight against fracked gas pipelines in our region. The Mountain Valley Pipeline poses a great risk to our forests and surrounding communities. We are also working to improve habitat connectivity for wildlife throughout Virginia and to ensure that all of our waterways are fully protected in accordance with the law.

Stop the Money Pipeline ~ If we can stop the flow of money, we can stop the flow of oil. In early 2020, thirty-two organizations came together to form the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition. We stand on the shoulders of years of movement work pressuring financial institutions to act on climate.