2022

Interview with Joe Dashiell, WDBJ 7, May 5, 2022
Opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline remain optimistic that construction of the controversial project can be halted. Photo: Mountain Valley Watch” “In brief: Pipeline rally, Unite the Right legal fees, and more,” C-Ville Weekly

2021

Erosion concerns
“Pictured is what Mountain Valley Watch, a group that tracks environmental issues regarding the Mountain Valley Pipeline, identified as a problem area south of Copley Road in Lewis County along the pipeline right-of-way in January. The group reported collapsing slopes and sediment in a stream crossing there in a filing with federal regulators.” Charleston Gazette-Mail, Nov 2, 2021
Mountain Valley Watch photo featured in Charleston Gazette-Mail, June 14, 2021
  • Flooding effects of Mountain Valley Pipeline under scrutiny after weekend damage in central WV, June 14, 2021, Charleston Gazette-Mail – “An analysis that the anti-pipeline group Mountain Valley Watch submitted to federal regulators in February argued that an increased risk of landslides along the project route in Lewis County remains, despite efforts to stabilize slide areas.”
  • Letter to the Editor, May 8, 2021, Roanoke Times – “McAuliffe lied about MVP, the most outrageous being we “wouldn’t even notice it.” Tell that to Mountain Valley Watch volunteers who have documented over 300 violations in damages to our water, our land, and our communities.”
  • How to Stop the MVP Climate Bomb, Mar 10, 2021, Roanoke Times – Cites Mountain Valley Watch’s Aug 2018 comments to the Virginia State Water Control Board. The author, Rick Shingles, is one of the founders of MVWatch.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline route on Sinking Creek Mountain, Va., taken from an aerial drone, courtesy Mountain Valley Watch. The Trek, Feb 24, 2021
  • ATC Rejects Mountain Valley Pipeline Opponents’ Request to See $19.5 Million Agreement, Feb 24, 2021, The Trek – “‘The ATC’s actions are a truly grotesque departure from their public ‘Identity Statement,’ which claims the ‘Conservancy’s staff and board embodies honesty, mutual respect, openness, continuous learning and improvement, and excellence,” ATC member Russell Chisholm said in a statement released Feb. 24. ‘Instead, the decision to enter into a Voluntary Stewardship Agreement and refuse to provide transparency about the decision inappropriately prioritizes the power of the Board over the wishes of ATC members and the public.'” Featuring photo from Mountain Valley Watch.
  • Mountain Valley Pipeline still facing concerns over Lewis County erosion issues, Feb 18, 2021, Charleston Gazette-Mail – “The filing submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by Kirk Bowers, co-founder of the anti-pipeline group Mountain Valley Watch, cites topographic and rainfall studies, past filings with federal regulators and aerial photographs of the pipeline to make a case that highly erodible soils, above average annual precipitation rates, and steep mountain slopes have produced an ideal situation for landslides to occur.”
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Mountain Valley Pipeline construction near Bent Mountain in January 2021. Photo courtesy of Mountain Valley Watch (Appalachian Voices)

2020

  • Mountain Valley Pipeline faces political, regulatory changes in 2021, Dec 27, 2020, Roanoke Times – Bondurant said a citizens’ monitoring group, Mountain Valley Watch, continues to spot problems with erosion control.
  • Panel again hears environmental concerns about Mountain Valley Pipeline, Dec 9, 2020, Roanoke Times – A report and photographs from Mountain Valley Watch, which was formed to monitor pipeline construction when it began nearly three years ago, was submitted Wednesday to the State Water Control Board. “Let’s get some grass growing on dirt that has been sitting there for 18 months,” Kirk Bowers, a professional engineer who is one of the founders of Mountain Valley Watch, said during a public comment period of the board’s meeting.
Federal regulators are rewriting environmental rules so a massive pipeline can be built across West Virginia, Dec 8, 2020, Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica – Feature image provided by MVWatch.
  • Self-Governance Against the MVP, Nov 12, 2020, 9 minute podcast by graduate students in conservation leadership – Features an interview with Russell Chisholm, MVWatch coordinator, on the importance of not relying “on those inspectors who have a specific outcome in mind, and that outcome is to get the thing built.”
  • The Appalachian Pipeline Resistance Movement: “We’re Not Going Away,” Oct 28, 2020, App Voices – Soon after construction began on the MVP, Johnson and Crabtree were among those who formed Mountain Valley Watch, a volunteer-driven effort to document environmental violations committed by pipeline builders. As of Oct. 28, water quality monitors have reported 650 potential construction and erosion control violations.
Desiree and Tuhawiyani Shelley
Desiree Shelley and her daughter Tuhawiyani at the Climate Emergency: Tri-State Pipeline Strike in Roanoke, Va., in September 2019. Photo courtesy of Desiree Shelley
  • Opponents of Mountain Valley Pipeline Sense Momentum as Project Remains Stalled in Legal Limbo, Oct 24, 2020, WV Gazette – One of MVWatch’s founders, Kirk Bowers is quoted: “When the construction workers are gone, [there will be] nothing left except destroyed land and property violated.” “It doesn’t do anything for the people of West Virginia.”
  • Pipeline Pushback, c-ville, Oct 13, 2020 – “The watch team for the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition…has carefully monitored the pipeline’s construction, looking out for violations that can be reported to the Department of Environmental Quality. It continues to find new violations.”
David Seriff Using His Porch for a Classroom During a Recent Site Visit with Students from Virginia Tech
David Seriff Using His Porch for a Classroom During a February 2020 Site Visit with Students from Virginia Tech organized by Mountain Valley Watch
  • David Seriff, The Battle for Brush Mountain, Oct 2020, POWHR.org – “Many citizens felt that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality was not monitoring Mountain Valley Pipeline construction closely enough. Numerous complaints and repeated occurrences of environmental damage were reported. Soon a group called Mountain Valley Watch was formed. Citizen volunteers fanned out across the pipeline path to monitor environmental degradation. Hundreds of reports were filed. Pictures, videos and even drone reconnaissance showed repeated violations by MVP. Meanwhile numerous lawsuits from property owners and environmental groups such as the Sierra Club disrupted the original timeline for completion.” 
  • Mountain Valley seeks to resume construction of pipeline, Sept 23, 2020, Roanoke Times – “We refuse to be made a sacrifice zone in order to reassure investors and boost Equitrans Midstream’s sagging stock performance,” said Russell Chisholm, co-chair of opposition group Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights, referring to the lead partner in the joint venture. “FERC should deny MVP’s requests for business as usual and grant our motion for a supplemental environmental impact statement with public participation,” Chisholm said in a written statement. “Anything short of that ignores a documented track record of failure and further capitulates to project managers who are openly hostile to our communities.”
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Sections of pipe are seen lined off Cove Hollow Road in Elliston, not far from where Mountain Valley Pipeline protesters sit in tree stands. HEATHER ROUSSEAU | The Roanoke Times
  • Mountain Valley asks FERC for more time to complete pipeline, Aug 26, 2020, Roanoke Times – “MVP claims it is a victim of lawsuits and lost permits, and should therefore be able to change the rules once again,” Georgia Haverty, [MVWatch volunteer] whose Giles County property will be cut in half by the pipeline, wrote in a letter to FERC urging it to deny the requested extension. “Had MVP been competent and honest, you know and I know this pipeline would have been completed on time and on budget,” she wrote. “MVP is neither of these things.”
  • Despite company claims, only a fraction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline is complete in Virginia, Aug 10, 2020, Virginia Mercury – Jon Sokolow, volunteer with MVWatch’s MVP advocates’ group: “The truth is that in Virginia MVP is less than 15 percent complete.  That’s 15.75 miles complete in Virginia out of a total of 108 miles. And in Spread G, the most difficult terrain on the route, the pipeline is less than 13 percent complete. In fact, in Spread G less than 20 percent of the pipe has even been trenched, much less welded. If we are talking about the 303-mile route as a whole, barely 50 percent of construction (51.32 percent to be precise) is complete.” 
  • The End of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline: Similar hurdles remain for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, July 21, 2020, App Voices – features MVWatch partner Indian Creek Watershed Association.
  • Mountain Valley, DEQ negotiate over environmental fines, July 20, 2020, Roanoke Times – Work on MVP “unleashed a flood of complaints from landowners, environmental groups and other opponents of what will be the largest natural gas pipeline ever built in Virginia.” According to Russell Chisholm, co-chair of POWHR and coordinator of MVWatch, the “ever-increasing number of violations is evidence” that MVP cannot “abide by Virginia’s environmental laws.”
  • With Atlantic Coast dead, is this pipeline next? July 8, 2020, E&E News – “The attacks by the environmental community and [nongovernmental organizations] have been good and successful at slowing these projects down.”
  • Pipeline Work Threatens Virginians, July 3, 2020, Virginia Mercury – “Monitors from a community group, Mountain Valley Watch, took photographs that show MVP workers congregating in groups closer than six feet and without facemasks, despite state protocols.” – Emily Little, Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action
Mountain Valley Pipeline workers cluster in Giles County, VA, April 21, 2020
Mountain Valley Pipeline workers cluster in Giles County, VA, April 21, 2020. Photo by Mountain Valley Watch volunteer

2019

  • Munley: Past time for water board to stop pipeline, Dec 12, 2019, Roanoke Times – “Citizens are owed a federal investigation to learn exactly why the unprecedented environmental destruction unfolded despite extensive date-and-time-stamped documentation by Mountain Valley Watch and property owners to Virginia DEQ.”
  • Munley: Northam is ‘Greenwashing’ MVP, Aug 28, 2019, Roanoke Times – “Mountain Valley Watch’s documentation of violations and citizens’ repeated trips to Richmond to plead with the SWCB face-to-face to stop work have been ignored, but the extraordinarily-high mid-July sediment readings should move Northam’s DEQ to swiftly stop work…. Northam’s initiative cannot greenwash the environmental carnage to Virginia nor its long-term existential harm to our climate and collective future.”
  • Regulators stop work on 2 miles of Mountain Valley Pipeline in Montgomery County, August 2, 2019, Roanoke Times – According to a statement issued by the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition, “those in positions of power chose to ignore our calls for real, meaningful enforcement through a stop work order and instead allowed MVP to work despite several missing federal permits, a pending lawsuit for violations, and at least 35 Notices of Violation in West Virginia.”

“I am appalled DEQ is in any way surprised that MVP crews are neglecting erosion and sediment control measures in an attempt to ram this project through as fast as possible. Our volunteer citizen monitors have been telling the DEQ and State Water Control Board since August 2018 and earlier that MVP was not upholding the requirements of the bad permit they issued in December 2017.”

–Russell Chisholm, Mountain Valley Watch, POWHR press release referenced by the Roanoke Times, Aug 2, 2019
Photo by Anne Bernard, Franklin Co, Virginia, published in Roanoke Times

2018

“DEQ has told us in meetings that they will not have the ability to be everywhere,” said [Jason] Shelton, who as co-owner of New River Geographics brings his drone-flying and online-mapping expertise to Mountain Valley Watch. “This is our backyard,” he said. “This is the environment we care about. All we want to do is watch and get the information to DEQ so our regulators can get to the spots we care about in a timely manner.”

–“Environmental watchdogs,” Roanoke Times
Gordon Jones with MVWatch volunteers Martha Murphy, and Karolyn Givens.
Photo by Heather Rousseau, Roanoke Times