Atlantic Coast Pipeline and a Variety of Public Oppositions: A Pipeline's Linear Geography of Protest

Keywords: protest, pipeline, environmental justice, Appalachia, environmental racism
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 70

Abstract

In 2014, Dominion Energy announced a new energy project, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). The pipeline was to transport ‘fracked’ natural gas from Ohio and Pennsylvania across West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The ACP passed across steep mountains and under hundreds of streams. Its path was also cut through two national forests, a popular ski resort, a yoga community, and a rural African American community in Virginia, among many other private properties. Dominion Energy and its supportive regulatory agencies therefore faced strong opposition from grassroots organizations from the very start of the pipeline’s proposal and construction. We explored this resistance by asking what fears opponents had about the pipeline’s construction and analyzed how these concerns shaped their mobilization against the project. A qualitative methodology was conducted using semi-structured interviews with ACP opponents, participant observations of public informational meetings, and analysis of relevant documents, news sources, YouTube videos, and social media platforms. In doing so, we employed an environmental justice framework with an emphasis on procedural power to analyze disruptions to communities and sensitive ecological areas along ACP’s path. Our findings indicate that ACP created concerns among a diverse group of opponents whose concerns ranged from environmental degradation, livelihood threats, to the unjust use of eminent domain by private firms. Interestingly, these concerns sparked various resistances along the pipeline from public protests and disruptions during official meetings to passive critique of pipeline construction procedures communicated to Dominion officials. ACP was eventually abandoned by Dominion due to overall pressure from opponents.