Friends – There are a number of key decision points on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) coming up in the very near future. This is the last call to sign on to the letter below to the Secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental
Quality (DEQ) to use his power to revoke a key water permit. With the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn a Court of Appeals ruling on the ACP’s crossing of the Appalachian Trail, the onus now falls squarely on the DEQ to stop this racist, polluting
project. Sign-on’s close at noon Eastern, Monday, June 29. You can sign on
here.
A strong showing on this letter will go far in convincing the DEQ Secretary that the pressure is on him to stop this boondoggle. Please
sign. And many thanks to those groups already on board the letter.
Thank you,
Donna Chavis and Karen Orenstein
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TEXT OF LETTER
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Dear Secretary Regan,
With the Supreme Court decision to overturn the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s crossing of the Appalachian Trail, the onus now falls squarely on the North Carolina Department of
Environmental Quality to stop this racist, polluting project. We therefore call on you to expeditiously exercise your authority to revoke the ACP’s 401 Water Quality Certification under the Clean Water Act.
The ACP is a posterchild for environmental racism. The 401 application clearly misinformed the DEQ and misrepresented the project’s scope, scale, and cumulative and disproportionate impact on communities of color. The ACP will disproportionately
harm low income, African-American, and Indigenous communities, many of whom have been excluded from important decision-making processes.[1]
It would have particularly adverse impacts on the Lumbee community in Robeson County, the largest community of Native Americans east of the Mississippi River. In fact, compared to their statewide numbers, Native Americans are over-represented by a factor of
ten along the North Carolina section of the pipeline route.
We know you are well aware of the litany of serious environmental harms the ACP would cause, on top of fueling the climate emergency. We also know you are well aware of how nonsensical this project is financially for ratepayers and for
the state. In fact, DEQ has made similar arguments in its opposition to the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Southgate: “The cost of renewable energy resources is rapidly declining and the economics now favor utility scale solar and onshore wind plus storage over
construction of natural gas infrastructure.”
Times are changing. Multiracial, multigenerational uprisings are occurring throughout the country in support of the Movement for Black Lives and against racist injustice. The people of this country will not tolerate another toxic pipeline
that poisons the bodies, the land, the air, and the water of Black and Brown communities.
Secretary Regan, you must not allow Native American and African-American communities in North Carolina to be sacrifice zones for the fossil fuel industry. It is undeniably incumbent upon you to revoke the 401 permit and stop the ACP once
and for all.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
[1] Ryan Emanuel, Flawed environmental justice analysis, Science Magazine Vol 357, Issue 6348, July 21, 2017.http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6348/260.1