A plan for 55 miles of natural gas pipelines through western Tidewater, boosted by an expanded compressor station just outside Petersburg and another in Emporia, would make bad air quality in two neighborhoods even worse, a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says.
“Communities in this part of the state are being hit on every side — rising sea levels and increased flooding. Dealing with the impacts of past bad projects and pollution,” said Greg Buppert, senior attorney and leader of Southern Environmental Law Center’s regional gas team.
“Alternatives to increasing the Petersburg Compressor Station’s horsepower and thus the pollution of an environmental justice community needs to be explored, including the ‘no action’ alternative,” said Lynn Godfrey, program manager for the Sierra Club’s Just Transition effort.
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Compressors are needed along gas pipelines to make sure pressure is high enough to keep gas moving to users.
Columbia Gas Transmission wants to replace 49.2 miles of pipeline, which dates back to the 1950s, that runs from Sussex County west to Chesapeake. In a related project, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. plans a 6.35-mile-long, 24-inch-diameter pipeline loop in Brunswick and Greensville counties.
The aim is to handle increased demand for gas in Hampton Roads.
But to move more gas through a pipeline twice as wide – 24 inches versus 12 – Columbia needs more muscle at its Petersburg compressor, just outside the city in Prince George County, just south of Fort Gregg-Adams.
Columbia wants to boost the compressor’s power by 2,700 horsepower, which FERC’s draft environmental impact statement notes would exceed critical guidelines for when the concentration of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide are too high at distances up to 0.6 miles from the station.
But that’s too much when there are houses 1,200 feet away from the compressor, according to comments on the draft statement from the Southern Environmental Law Center, Sierra Club, Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The center noted that the census tract’s 3,800 residents suffer far more commonly from asthma than do most Virginias, while the poverty rate is twice the state average. People in the tract rank in the 89th percentile for incidence of asthma, the center said. The tract’s population is 77% Black residents.
The eight census tracts surrounding this one are like it identified as disadvantaged under the Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool.
The law center suggested FERC require using electric-motor-driven compressors, or a combination of electric and gas-powered compressors, instead of the gas-fired units Columbia has proposed.
Columbia also plans to install a new 5,500-horsepower compressor unit next to two existing 650-horsepower units in Emporia. The people in the census tract here rank in the 90th percentile for asthma, 94th for diabetes and 84th for heart disease, and the increased emissions from the new compressor pose a risk to their health, the center said.
It asked FERC to conduct a more detailed review of potential harm to health when it does its final environmental impact statement.
The center also asked FERC to evaluate alternative routes to the one Columbia proposed that would cross the Great Dismal Swamp wildlife refuge and to require a more costly technique than Columbia proposed for crossing creeks and wetlands.
“The communities that will be impacted by the construction and operation of this project deserve more scrutiny of this project and its potential impacts,” said Taylor Lilley, Environmental Justice Staff Attorney for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Transcontinental Gas said the project is designed to meet all applicable federal and state air quality standards.
The company said it invested in a complete renovation of the Petersburg Compressor Station in 2019, including replacing its compressors. That resulted in the facility being reclassified as a minor source of emissions in its air permit.
It added that the new compressor it is planning at the Emporia Compressor Station, would be hybrid that would mostly use an electric motor to compressors, switching to gas only during emergencies, including power outages.
A final environmental impact statement, through which regulators can dictate how a project must be laid out, built and operated, is required for a major infrastructure project to go ahead, under federal environmental law.