On this West Virginia Week, Earth Day was Monday. We’ll hear from a hydrologist about the state’s rivers. We’ll learn more about why two leading candidates for governor are trading accusations in ads over transgender youth. And we’ll visit a community in southern West Virginia affected by contaminated water.
On this West Virginia Week, Earth Day was Monday. We’ll hear from a hydrologist about the state’s rivers. We’ll learn more about why two leading candidates for governor are trading accusations in ads over transgender youth. And we’ll visit a community in southern West Virginia affected by contaminated water.
We’ll also talk about what’s next for opponents of new federal power plant rules. We’ll find out who Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has endorsed to be his successor in the Senate. And we’ll learn when a long-delayed controversial natural gas pipeline proposes to begin operating.
Curtis Tate is our host this week. Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert.
West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick and Randy Yohe.
The company wrote that the 303-mile project will be mechanically complete by May 22 and seeks FERC’s approval by May 23.
The builders of the Mountain Valley Pipeline are seeking federal approval to begin operations within weeks.
MVP has sought approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to begin operations in late May.
The company wrote that the 303-mile project will be mechanically complete by May 22 and seeks FERC’s approval by May 23.
It says its customers with long-term contracts for natural gas from the pipeline become effective on June 1.
The $7.5 billion pipeline has been delayed and cost more than projected as environmental groups and landowners challenged the project in court.
The MVP is under a consent decree with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration over a corrosion-resistant coating that may have degraded while large sections of pipe were exposed to weather during the delays.
That’s after groups challenged the safety of the exposed pipe. The company agreed to take corrective measures to eliminate any safety risk.
Various legal challenges to the pipeline’s construction ended last year when Congress passed, and President Joe Biden signed, a spending agreement that approved all remaining permits.
While some opponents continue to press forward, it appears they have few options remaining before the pipeline goes into service.
The MVP has a capacity of two billion cubic feet of gas a day. It will connect north-central West Virginia with southern Virginia and open up West Virginia gas production to new markets in the mid-Atlantic.
Curtis Tate spoke with Charlie Burd, president of the West Virginia Gas and Oil Association, about the state’s role in supplying the global market.
The United States exported a record volume of natural gas in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Curtis Tate spoke with Charlie Burd, president of the West Virginia Gas and Oil Association, about the state’s role in supplying the global market.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tate: Who are the biggest natural gas players in West Virginia? Where does the gas go?
Burd: We have two of the largest natural gas producers in the country operating in West Virginia. Actually, EQT is the largest natural gas producer in the country. And Antero resources is the largest natural gas producer in West Virginia. And I believe I heard the number that about a third of our production here in the state, and we produce just less than 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It was 2.8 in 2022. And I’ve heard during the legislative session, that number may top 3 trillion for 2023. I haven’t seen those numbers yet. Because the reports aren’t due until like April, mid-April, but about a third, I believe, of our production is transported east to be converted into liquefied natural gas to be shipped across the oceans to our allies.
Tate: Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was a game changer. When did production take off?
Burd: I think the first well was drilled in December of 2007, put into production in 2008. That was a Chesapeake well. We produced 256 (billion cubic feet) of natural gas. And now we’re producing round numbers that say 3 trillion cubic feet. So that’s where it started. And that’s where we are. And it has greatly increased from year to year. That 3 TCF, 96 percent of that comes from probably about 4,600 horizontal wells in 2022, 2.85 trillion cubic feet from 4,500 wells. And I think we’ve added about 100 wells. I won’t have the exact numbers for a couple of weeks. That’s where it all came from.
Tate: Where is the production concentrated?
Burd: If you were to look at a map of West Virginia, and look at I-79, which literally dissects the state almost straight up the middle of north and south. When you get to about Braxton County, and it all goes to the northwest. That’s where the wet play is. That’s where the more enriched natural gas with propane and ethane is, if you’re again using that as a kind of a guide, using 79 as a guide, anything to the east of 79 is pretty much in a dry play. It’s almost pipeline quality gas coming out of the ground there.
Tate: What’s the difference between wet and dry gas?
Burd: Wet gas has the heavier hydrocarbons: propane, ethane, butane, isobutane. And what we call dry gas would be that gas stream that is just mostly methane. So in addition to methane, those other heavier hydrocarbons are what we delineate as a wet gas. And we produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 700,000 barrels of ethane and liquids a day in that northwestern tier of the state. And those products are extracted through two or three large processing facilities we have up in that also in that same general area. Those liquids are sent south and north, south into Louisiana and north into Canada to be further processed. Or put in a pipeline and shipped to where those liquids are used.
Tate: What does the Mountain Valley Pipeline mean for gas producers in West Virginia?
Burd: That pipe is what they call fully subscribed. Meaning that the end users that have already subscribed or purchased will be purchasing that gas in long term, fixed contracts for that natural gas. But it means a lot to us because it’s literally, probably one of the last major pipelines that may be built. And for West Virginia, unlike Texas, and other places that can move a lot of gas across their state and be intrastate, our situation is much different. We have to ship our gas out of state where there are markets. West Virginia is small in comparison to other markets. So our gas is moved through interstate pipelines out of the state.
Tate: Why is MVP one of the last major pipelines to be built?
Burd: I think you just look at the extraordinarily difficult process someone has to encounter to design and construct a pipeline in this country now, it’s almost impossible. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which was a Dominion project, another 2 BCF a day that would have gone to eastern markets and military use. That project got scrapped a couple years ago. Because, the cost overruns, and just the increased scrutiny of us to have a line crossing 200 feet under the Appalachian Trail. Not impacting the trail at all, but just because it, quote-unquote, “crossed underneath.” that there was a lot of outcry.
Tate: Burning natural gas emits carbon dioxide and producing and transporting gas releases methane. Both are greenhouse gases. What is the industry doing to reduce those impacts?
Burd: Number one on our own, several years ago, the industry took upon itself to develop a program internally to reduce methane emissions. And here in the (Appalachian) basin, there’s lots of smaller conventional wells. And now in addition to the bigger Marcellus wells, we’ve reduced our carbon footprint here by something like 70 percent, over the last 10 years, just on initiatives, initiatives of our own, and then we get new legislation that says we have to do more. I mean, I think we’re still in the process of completing what we started on our own. Secondly, the methane that comes off of fugitive emissions that we would have when wells are put in, put into service, and methane doesn’t stay hovering over West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. It goes way into the atmosphere. And there’s no question that if this administration is serious about reducing global emissions, no one produces natural gas more safely, or efficiently, or environmentally sound. And we do that we do right here in this country. No one has the exacting standards for environmental and safety as the United States does.
Tate: Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia have moved sharply away from coal and toward natural gas for electricity in the past 10 to 15 years. Why hasn’t West Virginia?
Burd: Well, it’s not because of lack of effort to develop natural gas fired electric generation. We have tried, and there have been numerous projects that have been placed upon the table. I think, Curtis, choosing my words with you carefully here, we have a state that has historically believed its reliance on energy and jobs came from the coal industry. But at the hands of the EPA and others, this constant demand to reduce emissions, and produce energy cleaner has transformed all those states you mentioned to producing electricity with natural gas. West Virginia’s a bit behind, but it’s not because we’re not trying. It’s just that we find ourselves in a better place. Literally, every day when it comes to being able to compete for those projects evenly with all the same playing field with Ohio, Pennsylvania. I mean, you’re right, Ohio and Pennsylvania collectively have maybe two dozen plants, two dozen natural gas fired electric generation plants. We literally have one down there in Huntington.
Treasurer Riley Moore added HSBC, Citigroup, TD Bank and Northern Trust to its list of financial institutions barred from state contracts. BMO and Fifth Third were not added to the list.
West Virginia’s Treasurer added four banks to a list of restricted institutions this week, but two more were left off.
However, two more banks that received warning letters from Moore in February, BMO and Fifth Third, were not added to the list.
Both banks replied to Moore that they were not shunning such investments. Senate Bill 262, enacted two years ago, enabled the Treasurer to review banks’ environmental, social and governance, or ESG policies.
They are Goldman Sachs, Chase, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and TD.
Other states, including Kentucky and Texas, have passed similar laws in opposition to ESG policies that are perceived to discourage fossil fuel investments.
Europe was the biggest customer of U.S. LNG last year as the continent continues a shift that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
About 66 percent of U.S. LNG exports went to European countries, primarily the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom.
Asia was the second biggest market for U.S. LNG at 26 percent. Japan and South Korea were the largest importers.
Australia and Qatar trailed the United States, with about 10 billion cubic feet of LNG exported from each. Further down were Russia and Malaysia, each with less than 5 billion cubic feet.
West Virginia, the fourth largest U.S. producer of natural gas, produced 3 trillion cubic feet in 2023, according to the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia. Some of it was exported as LNG through the Cove Point terminal in southern Maryland.
The state’s gas industry expects the mid-year opening of the controversial and delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline, which will have a capacity of 2 billion cubic feet per day.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has sharply increased gas production in the Appalachian Basin in the past 15 years.
Coles and Theresa “Red” Terry have been fighting over the Mountain Valley Pipeline nearly since it was first proposed in 2014. The project connects natural gas terminals in Virginia and West Virginia with a 303-mile pipeline that stretches across some of Appalachia’s most rugged terrain. Almost immediately after construction began, protestors tried to block it by setting up and living in platforms in trees along the route.
This story originally aired in the March 24, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.
Coles and Theresa “Red” Terry have been fighting over the Mountain Valley Pipeline nearly since it was first proposed in 2014.
The project connects natural gas terminals in Virginia and West Virginia with a 303-mile pipeline that stretches across some of Appalachia’s most rugged terrain. Almost immediately after construction began, protesters tried to block it by setting up and living in platforms in trees along the route.
Theresa Terry, better known as “Red,” was one of those tree sitters, and she stood out. She was in her 60s — and she wasn’t just an activist. She was tree-sitting on her own land. Back in 2018, Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams interviewed her from on the ground, outside a police barrier that had been set up to prevent her from receiving supplies from her supporters.
Red Terry looks down from her tree sit against the Mountain Valley Pipeline in 2018.
Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Not long after the interview, Red was forced out of the trees by a judge who threatened her with a $1,000 per day fine. But Red and her husband Coles have continued to fight the pipeline in court.
Since Congress approved a law that included a provision to force completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, they’ve been seeing construction crews again. Adams wanted to learn more about what’s happened in the six years since Red came down from her tree sit. So he ventured out to Bent Mountain, Virginia, to talk to Red and Coles on their family land.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Adams: How long have y’all lived on this land here in Roanoke County? Did you grow up here?
Coles: I didn’t grow up up here. I grew up in town. My dad, he was an insurance agent. He had his own business. I grew up in Roanoke, but this property’s been in my family for, you know, several generations. We’ve lived up here since we got married. We were married in the front yard, and pretty much came back from our honeymoon into this house.
Red and Cole Terry embrace after she came down from more than a month in her tree sit in 2018.
Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Adams: So I remember the kind of pipeline being announced. When did y’all learn that the Mountain Valley Pipeline was supposed to come through this property?
Coles: March 28, 2015. We got a letter from the county telling us that our property was one of their proposed routes. Two-hundred and two landowners were served at one time, because it was just quicker and easier to take us all to court. I think we got one offer from them. It was a ridiculously low offer. [We] just said no, and the next thing I know, I’m being sued for eminent domain. There was no negotiating, there was no coming by and talking, “Hey, this is what we can do,” sitting down and talking to you about anything. It’s just, “Hey, no, we’re taking it. This National Gas Act allows us to do that. It put it in the national interest.” Unfortunately, the national interest doesn’t include also protecting people’s personal property, the water or people’s well-beings. It’s just, “It’s in the natural interest to get this pipeline in the ground and pumping gas.
Adams: That was 2018. Here we are now in 2024. I drove in and there are still visible pipeline crews.
Coles: Oh yeah. Everywhere.
Adams: What’s it like to live next to that for six years? How do you come to terms with that?
Coles: For a while, you still had the hopes that, because they were still working on getting all their permits and we were still commenting, and we were still meeting with people in these organizations who were supposedly there to prevent anything going wrong, [they’d] step up and say, “Hey!” But they just kept getting, “Well, this, this looks good to us. This looks fine. There’s nothing to see here. Go ahead. You can do what you need to do.” It just gets more and more disheartening every day. We’re still fighting. They’re still ongoing. We’re taking pictures. We’re trying to show where the sediment’s coming in, and, they’re basically not even getting a slap on the wrist anymore.
I don’t even want to be outside. I don’t want to hear them. Just the fact that I know they’re there is hard enough on me. It’s tough sometimes. Right now, I can hear them when I go outside. I can’t see them because they have finished burying the pipe behind my house for the most part. They still have to test it and then restore it and everything. But that could still take years.
Red Terry crosses a creek near her home just after coming down from a tree sit in 2018.
Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Adams: Red, you showed me your photo roll, and a lot of photos with the sedimentation and the slime. I remember you scrolled down a good way, and I was overwhelmed in a way, because you had other photos of family and things like that. But so much of your photo roll was just documenting this damage. Like every day when you drive out, you’re just surrounded by it. And you’re dealing with a bureaucracy that seems unresponsive. So I’m wondering, what keeps you going? What gives you hope? What helps you get up and keep fighting this battle day after day, after day?
Coles: For me? I guess it’s the hope that maybe somebody somewhere will will say, “Yeah, we need to stop this or slow this down.” A lot of it, too, is tried to stop it from happening to somebody else. They’re now proposing another pipeline that’s going to be just as big as this one and just as bad as this one. I admire President Biden for halting any new LNG [liquefied natural gas] buildout. We’re already one of the biggest exporters of LNG in the world. The UK and European nations are trying to get away from LNG, and so the market for that is going to collapse. But we’re going to force the country to build more infrastructure to support it. We don’t know where it’s even gonna go.
Red: From day one, it has been nothing but lies. When your daughter — who is just as mean and ornery and, in my eyes, perfect — looks at you and says, “I won’t be alive in two years,” because this bomb’s gonna go off. And we are in the blast zone. I’m 600 yards from that bomb. Everybody up here on this mountain right now, including myself, have pipes floating in water. That one out there floated in over four feet of water for a month. They came in and took two pumps to pump it dry, heat it up, welded it, threw it in there and covered it with mud. You’re not supposed to cover it with mud. But hey, okay, they’re in a hurry. They don’t have to really do anything that they’re supposed to do.
What gets me up in the morning? I don’t want to get up in the morning. I don’t want to do anything. I have so much **** to do, and I’m paralyzed.
Adams: So now MVP is telling investors and the press that they expect to be completed this spring. What do you all foresee in the future? What do you expect will happen?
Coles: Do I think they’ll be done by the end of March? I see pictures of pipe still above ground. I don’t know how long it’s going to take them to bore under [Interstate] 81. I know there’s some really hard rock there. I know that they might have finished one of the bores at my sister’s, but it took them a lot longer than they thought it was going to. They’re still blasting over there.
So, either they’ve given up boring or they’re just digging through, I’m not sure. I find it hard to believe this pipeline will be in service by the end of the first quarter of this year. “In-service” means a lot of different things to me. Even if the whole pipe’s in the ground, it still has to be tested. The right-of-way has to be restored. FERC [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] still has to approve it. I was told that it could take ‘til 2026 or 2027 to get everything restored.
Adams: That thing you said about Minor [their daughter] saying she doesn’t expect to be alive in three years?
Coles: Yes. Because she thinks once they start putting gas in this thing, it’s going to rupture and explode.
Red: This is one of the steepest, unbelievable, someone sitting in an office drawing a line. And I understand what they did because they have tried to go to the largest landowners so that they don’t have that many fights, so they don’t have that much opposition.
Coles and Theresa “Red” Terry at their home in Bent Mountain, Virginia.
Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Adams: When I was a cub reporter at the Roanoke Times and somebody gets shot and killed, you’d have to go to talk to their family — like that level of grief. That’s what this feels like.
Red: When Coles and I got married, and when we moved up here, this wall was falling in. This was screens that had been ripped and torn. These boards under here were this wide and they were spaced to have plenty of room between them. And my dearest husband hooked a come-along to a tree out here and pulled the house back out, put in the drop ceiling, put in the staircase here, put in the windows. We laid some floor, put some carpet down, opened the door. And every morning, every ******* morning. I would get up — my kids got me blinds to close for the MVP, I’ve never had blinds up — but every morning I would go out here and look, and just stand there and look, and think to myself, “I must be the luckiest person alive to have this view.”
Now, every time I look, I see the flags. I see the damage. I see the destruction. And I mean, my view, my hike through there, my apple orchard on the top where I went mushroom hunting, and all the critters in the world up here went up to that top orchard. Because the trees were so big. I had one up there that just produced so much. And all of that is now part of their LOD. And it just … it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking what they’ve done. I mean, I still love this mountain, but it’s heartbreaking what they’ve done to so many parts that were so beautiful. And then the other day, when my son was here, and I stopped at the mailboxes, and I parked on our road, our driveway, and I walked over to the mailboxes and all the MVP guys were leaving. So I “waved” to ‘em. And one guy went by me in a big blue truck, and he slammed on his brakes.
Now, you got a whole crew leaving, and he slammed on his brakes, and I’m standing at my mailbox waiting on them to pass. And he comes over and goes, “You don’t know me. You don’t know me. Don’t be shooting the finger at me.” And I looked at him. I said, “Are you a pipeliner?” He said, “Yes, I am.” I said, “Well, I don’t have to know you to know what you’re doing to my land, and yeah, I’d like you to go the **** home.” And he said, “I’m not going anywhere,” and he gets … he’s a little taller than I am. And he’s like, “If you don’t like it, why don’t you move?” And I’m like, “My husband’s family has been here for seven generations.” He goes, “I’ve been a pipeliner. We’ve got pipeliners for six generations.” But he gets up over me.
I said, “Bring in on, ***********. You don’t have anything that scares me. I’m old. I’m tired. And I used to be a redhead before you ************* showed up. So do your worst. I’m not afraid.” And the guy about 10 trucks back jumped out and came up and grabbed him. “Get in your truck and leave.” He goes, “I’m not finished.” He says, “Yes you are. Get in your truck and leave.” And I’ve never had such evil thoughts in my life. I have never wanted to hurt anyone. And things are changing. Things are changing. I would like to hurt somebody really bad.
——
After this interview, Inside Appalachia reached out to pipeline officials about the Terrys’ claims.
Pipeline spokeswoman Natalie Cox sent a statement:
“MVP project opponents continue to promote factual inaccuracies in support of their agenda, which includes a primary objective to stop MVP and other linear infrastructure. The MVP project has been subject to an unprecedented level of scrutiny, and the fact is the VADEQ, WVDEP, and other agencies continue to conduct daily project inspections, and the inspection process is working as designed. If and when any compliance issues are identified, Mountain Valley takes immediate responsibility to remediate the identified issue or concern. As has always been the case, completing construction and fully restoring the project’s right-of-way remains the best method of permanent environmental protection.
“Mountain Valley will continue to coordinate with all appropriate state and federal agencies, including FERC, USACE, VADEQ, VDCR, and WVDEP, to ensure the safe, responsible completion of the project, which includes building and operating the project in accordance with all applicable regulations, incorporating best management practices, and meeting or exceeding applicable industry standards for linear infrastructure.”
Construction continues on the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Company officials project it will be completed by June 2024.
