NEWPORT — Fern Echols spotted a man walking near the family house and ventured outside to investigate. She suspected he worked as a contractor for the private company that hopes to route a large natural gas pipeline through the region.
“He told me he was looking for endangered species,” she recalled. “I told him, ‘Honey, you just met one.’”
Fern Shupe Echols, a daughter of a Tazewell County coal miner, is 76 years old. She can be alternately formidable, feisty and congenial. Her husband, Estial Earl Echols Jr., was a farm boy in Craig County who grew up to serve in the U.S. Army and manage service stations. Earl is 80 years old and frail.
The Echolses live in a modest home perched above Virginia 42 in the village of Newport in eastern Giles County. A flagpole in their yard displays an American flag and the banner of the U.S. Marine Corps, in which a grandson serves.
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A survey crew working for Mountain Valley Pipeline recently hammered a stake into the Echolses’ yard about 65 feet from their home. The crew knotted orange surveyor’s tape near the top of the stake, signifying that it marks the centerline of the proposed 42-inch diameter buried pipeline that will transport natural gas at high pressure — if the controversial project moves forward.
The Echolses weren’t the only residents of Newport who felt like the stake driven that day had been hammered into their heart.
Inside the Echolses’ home, a six-pound Bible, ringed by framed family photos, occupies the center of a coffee table in the living room. Fern referenced a parable from the Old Testament when trying to explain how it feels to imagine losing her home to a pipeline company.
The rich man owned many cattle and sheep. The poor man owned but one ewe lamb. The lamb lived in the poor man’s home and drank from his cup and slept in his lap. He loved the precious lamb like a daughter.
But when the rich man hosted a guest he was reluctant to kill any of his own cattle or sheep to feed the visitor. Instead, the rich man took the poor man’s lamb and had it slaughtered and cooked.
“And that’s how I feel about our house,” said Fern Echols. “All we have is this one little lamb and the pipeline company wants to come and take it.”
Consequences?
As proposed, the $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline would run about 303 miles from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to the Transco pipeline in Pittsylvania County. It would travel through rural Giles County and Newport.
Perry Martin, a life-long resident, said Newport has launched a comeback in recent years, a rebound he said the pipeline would reverse.
“In essence, Newport, more than any community in the pipeline’s proposed path, is potentially going to take a direct hit in the heart of our historic district, while avoiding more affluent communities and homes,” Martin said.
His father, Doug Martin, the village’s unofficial historian, said Newport has always been a crossroads community. The Cumberland Gap Turnpike once passed through.
Today, says Doug Martin, Newport itself faces a crossroads.
As an interstate pipeline, the Mountain Valley project needs a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission certificate of public convenience and necessity before construction can begin.
Pipeline proponents, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe, emphasize that the natural gas the project would transport could stimulate economic development, provide a cleaner fuel than coal for power generation and aid the nation’s quest for energy independence.
Meanwhile, after residents of Newport — including the Echolses — expressed concerns early on about a proposed route’s proximity to the Newport Recreation Center, the Mayapple School and a rescue squad building, FERC directed Mountain Valley to shift the route.
In October, Mountain Valley proposed a revised route — moving the pipeline next to the Echolses’ house and closer to the center of Newport and to historic structures that include the circa-1853 Newport-Mt. Olivet United Methodist Church, the Methodist Parsonage and the C.A. Hardwick house, both circa 1909.
A banner displayed by pipeline opponents along Virginia 42, also known as Blue Grass Trail, reads “Entering Pipeline Blast Zone.”
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration prefers the phrase “potential impact radius” over “blast zone.” The radius designates the range in which the failure of a pipeline “could have a significant impact on people or property.”
For the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the potential impact radius would be about 1,115 feet — a range that would include the Echolses’ home, the parsonage, the Hardwick House and the Methodist church. The recreation center, preschool and rescue squad building still would be within the zone as well.
According to FERC’s draft environmental impact statement for the project, the pipeline company noted that the Methodist church, located about 400 feet from the revised route, would qualify as a “high consequence area,” or HCA, a locale in which a gas pipeline accident “could do considerable harm to people and their property.” On Sundays and during weddings and other ceremonies the church might host dozens of people, creating a potential for “considerable harm.”
Typically, the designation requires a pipeline operator “to devote additional focus, efforts and analysis to ensure the integrity of pipelines.”
Sara Gosman, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law who serves on the board for the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit watchdog organization, said that even though the probability of serious ruptures of natural gas transmission pipelines is low, when failures do occur they tend to have high consequences.
According to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, in 2014 there were more than 301,000 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines in the United States. There have been 1,315 significant incidents with pipelines from 1996 to 2015 and 46 associated fatalities.
Eight of those deaths occurred in September 2010 after the rupture of a 30-inch diameter pipeline. The resulting fire destroyed 38 homes. The rupture was attributed to a poorly welded section of pipe.
A unifying force
During a Sunday morning service at the church on Nov. 13, Pastor Morris Fleischer briefly referenced the Mountain Valley Pipeline when he talked to the congregation about how faith can be an antidote to fear.
During a separate interview, Fleischer said Mountain Valley might have underestimated both the resolve and sophistication of the rural community of Newport when it proposed a pipeline route through the village.
“These are folks who are conscientious about things,” Fleischer said. “People who are very knowledgeable. They are methodical. They love the heritage and history here.”
The Greater Newport Rural Historic District Committee and its Ohio-based attorney, Matt Fellerhoff, contend that Mountain Valley and its contractors have not adequately inventoried the historic and cultural resources of the rural historic district or the Newport Historic District.
As a result, the pipeline company has failed to fully identify the impacts of the project on these resources, the committee contends. FERC’s draft environmental impact statement for the project acknowledges that the commission needs additional information to assess the effect of the pipeline on the Greater Newport Rural Historic District and other historic resources.
FERC notes, “We conclude that the MVP may have adverse effects on historic properties, and those effects would have to be resolved through an agreement document.” FERC recommended that Mountain Valley not begin pipeline construction until after the completion of additional surveys and consultations.
Fellerhoff said FERC should not approve the project before these issues are resolved.
“We believe issuing a certificate and then trying to solve the problem is contrary to law,” he said. “By then it will be too late to consider alternatives.”
Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for Mountain Valley Pipeline, responded.
“MVP has worked diligently to conduct accurate and comprehensive surveys of cultural, historic and environmental resources along the project route,” Cox said.
Perry Martin said historic preservation is vital, especially given that tourism helps drive the regional economy.
“But it’s not just about being an historic community,” he said. “It’s an active community. The past few years have seen the beginnings of a quiet revival, with much citizen involvement in community projects.”
Those projects have included a renovation of the Village Green and new arts programs, he said, along with a weekend food program for needy children and sports camps that invite children to participate without cost.
The perceived threat of the Mountain Valley Pipeline has proved to be a unifying force, said Jean Porterfield, who lives on a farm near Newport that she said has been in her family for more than 200 years. Porterfield has written impassioned letters to FERC about the potential impacts of the pipeline on the region’s environment and wildlife and on residents who feel a deep and abiding attachment to the land.
Perry Martin, like Fleischer, said Mountain Valley might learn that routing the pipeline through Newport would be a mistake.
“Our heels are dug in,” he said. “It might look like you can roll over a small, rural community like this. But when you’re taking on one of us, you’re taking on all of us.”
Including Fern and Earl Echols and their three children — sons Timmy and Lloyd and daughter Dawn Cisek — who all live in the region. The Echolses also have eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Cisek drove Fern and Earl to Roanoke on Nov. 3 so they could share comments with FERC about the commission’s draft environmental impact statement for the project. Fern Echols began by sharing her fears about having to leave the family home. She said a contractor working for Mountain Valley had told her she and Earl would likely have to move.
According to FERC’s transcript, Paul Friedman, FERC’s Mountain Valley project manager, interrupted and assured the Echolses that they would not have to leave the home.
“Let me stop you right there,” Friedman said, according to the transcript. “No homes will be taken. The pipeline company’s only authorized to negotiate an easement of land. You will never be removed from your home.”
Fern Echols then worried aloud about living within 65 feet of the 42-inch diameter pipeline transporting natural gas at high pressure.
Friedman said thousands of people live near “millions of miles of pipeline in the United States.” He added, “Right next to houses. Nothing ever happens.”
After the meeting that night, during the drive home, Cisek called Rick Elmore, a right-of-way agent for Coates Field Service, a contractor working for Mountain Valley Pipeline. Cisek, whose property could be affected by a pipeline access road, said Elmore told her that Friedman was wrong.
“Rick told me that’s not true — that he’s had to relocate several people before [in other projects],” she recalled.
Contacted this week, Elmore referred questions to Matt Clark of Coates Field Service, who did not return a phone call. Mike Williams, Coates Field Service’s project manager for the Mountain Valley project, declined to comment; he referred questions to Cox.
Cox did not reply directly to a question about whether Mountain Valley has a policy about acquiring an entire property or just an easement in situations where the pipeline route comes close to a home.
Instead, she offered a more general statement: “MVP understands and believes in the importance of continuing to work with landowners and community members to discuss sensitivities and potential minor route adjustments, which include the avoidance of occupied structures.”
Cox noted, though, that in some situations the pipeline company is “limited to how and where adjustments can be made.”
Sustained by faith
Marshall Overstreet, a Realtor with a long history of working in the New River Valley, said that the Echolses’ property will suffer a loss in value because of the pipeline.
“The presence of a 42-inch, high-pressure pipeline, just 65 feet from the house would, in my opinion, make it nearly impossible to sell,” Overstreet said. “There are always other houses for sale that are not encumbered in that way. This is not to say that someone would not buy it at all, but it most certainly would be at a severely reduced price.”
If FERC approves the Mountain Valley project, the company will have access to federal eminent domain to acquire easements across private property.
Fern Echols worked 32 years at the Celanese plant in nearby Narrows, spinning yarn. She retired about 18 years ago. She still works part time at a daycare center at a Baptist church.
Earl is disabled and hasn’t worked for many years.
The couple said they feel both powerless and perplexed about how a private pipeline company can take their property or acquire an easement across it without their consent. Their son Lloyd, 57, acknowledged he gets upset just contemplating the prospect of his parents losing their home. It’s Lloyd’s son, Jason, who is a Marine.
“I just don’t understand how people can come in and just take what you’ve worked your whole life for,” he said, shaking his head. “Where’s 80-year-old people going to go and start over?”
The Echolses also understand that another shift in the pipeline route could just bring heartache to someone else.
Fern Echols said her faith sustains her. She references scripture from Exodus in which Moses tells the Israelites that the Lord will deliver them from the pursuing Egyptians. She said she hopes that someday soon the pipeline people will leave and let them live in peace.