Letter to the Editor: Linda Emrich

Ten years after the toxic chemical leak into the Elk River that poisoned the water of 300,000 West Virginia American Water customers and local wells and springs, the strong legislation that resulted in 2014, concerning the inspection, monitoring and setting limits on the level of toxicity that a Government Agency may permit has been compromised to allow the Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural Gas to dump their toxic and radioactive waste into our groundwater. In order to protect our life-supporting habitat on Earth, we must ban fracking NOW!

Our current WV State Legislature’s R- Super Majority has accelerated the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline “in case of urgency” by changing the environmental protection rules and passing new (January 2023) legislation before it was posted or given any consideration by the full WV State Government and could have been written by corporate lawyers in their attempt to acquire the necessary agency permits to proceed with such environmentally devastating and dangerous projects. The Fourth Circuit Court displayed common sense and ecological sanity in their 2023 decision, which the U. S. Supreme Court overruled and basically, gave the fossil fuel transportation corporation, Equitrans and MVP total freedom to spend and do whatever to complete construction and get the Marcellus Shale Natural Gas marketed by fracturing the crust of our Earth with radioactive toxic fluids. A 330-mile pipeline to poison and threaten the potable water of our living communities. An extraction process that will accelerate the shifting of the Earth’s crust and cause erosion that threatens to break the already weakened pipes. In the last week of the 2023 Legislative Session, the gas utilities were granted permission to raise the rates on gas customers to cover the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s skyrocketing costs, in addition to the pipeline fee charged to the household bills earlier last year!

Is this happening because most people can not afford to hire pushy lawyers? Maybe because so many of our offices of power have been filled with fossil fuel corporate lobbyists? Has the Supreme Court of the United States (S.C.O.T.U.S.) turned against the people by over-ruling the decisions of the Courts that rule in favor of the concerns of U.S. Citizens? What has happened to States’ Rights in relation to Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Federal Government?

This Election Year, I hope that common sense will somehow prevail and the direction of our economy will change from that of an infrastructure for death and destruction to one of respect for our living communities and an environment that can sustain the living. Nature is the art of God, and achieving the good healthy balances of our ecological communities must be our goal, regardless of the number of dollars spoken. Money is the Governmental tool with which power is exerted over life. Controlling bigger numbers of dollars is the Corporate Businesses goal and desired end result but these paperwork entities are not living people and are not responsible or socially conscious. In 2010, S.C.O.T.U.S. gave corporations the freedom to donate as much money into our U.S. Elections as they want through Citizens United. The Supreme Court of the U.S.A. also decided the outcome of the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election. The Republican Party has a plan for 2025, if their candidate wins the Presidency in 2024, that will roll back all environmental protections. The W.V. State Legislature isn’t waiting for any election results before pushing through completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. It is my prayer that environmental sanity will prevail and the MVP will not transport gas to market but instead, become a trunk line right of way for remote estate and rural farm development. Contact your Government Representatives about the rewrite of America’s basic Farm Bill. The Bill is a $700 billion infrastructure package that supports our water, wildlife and environmental protections through programs that encourage good healthy food production in our rural agricultural communities.

Water For Life! Don’t Dump On Me! Ban Fracking NOW!