In the 2015 filing with Federal Environmental Regulatory Commission (FERC), Dominion Power was slated to dig and slog 5.5 miles through the George Washington National Forest and right through the home turf of a rare and shy creature -- the Cow Knob Salamander.
Dominion has only just changed its plans and decided to tunnel its pipeline under the mountain domain of the salamander.
What does this mean? How will this kind of excavation affect the mountain area through which Dominion Power will drill? Dominion Power will have to drill horizontally 5000 feet with a 42" pipe. Dominion Power spokesperson Jim Norvelle
declined to reveal the drilling distance under the salamander’s lands out of concern about “revealing too much information about the location of the habitat.”
Link.
There will be many challenges with various kinds of rocks and boulders. I can't imagine the staging this kind of construction will require and how it will not have an affect on the fragile Cow Knob salamander. One of the areas that Dominion Power is thinking of drilling through is Reeds Gap and under 664. This will mean not only going under the mountain but also under James river there. How will they drill under the river?
Pipeline opponent Rick Webb of Highland County, a retired University of Virginia watershed scientist, said he didn’t know enough yet to say if the new proposal would help the salamander. But Webb said drilling through a mountain would require the clearing of land for equipment. That “huge disturbance” could create an opportunity for stormwater to run off the cleared land and pollute streams, Webb said.
LINK.
Dominion hopes to begin construction sometime in 2016.
Here is a bicycle riders view of Reeds Gap on 664. DK will not let me embed. Even with embed code. So here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/...
Below the OT (Orange Twirl).
We Democrats need allies in in Richmond. If you've been paying attention to the 90for90 movement and the wonderful diaries written about it here and here (just to give two examples,) at DK, then you know what's at stake tomorrow.
Tomorrow, November 3rd, 2015 is Election Day. Virginians, hopefully will vote Democrats back in control of the Virginia State Senate.