Dear Editor: Money and politics are desperately trying to expand the natural gas infrastructure in an attempt to keep up with the carbon boom. We are a planet of 7 billion people. China will not reach peak carbon output until 2030. Dominion Power was granted approval in September 2014 to convert a Liquefied Natural Gas facility at Cove Point on the Chesapeake Bay into an export terminal. This terminal will export 0.7 billion cubic feet per day of fracked natural gas from the Marcellus Shale. The facility will have the storage capacity of 14.6 billion cubic feet. Dominion Power already has 20 year contracts with Japanese and Indian energy companies. There are two proposed natural gas pipelines to cross under the Greenbrier River. The fracked gas travelling through our state will never be used by West Virginians. Our river cannot accept this sacrifice. One spill ruins the perception of the river. What are your views of the Elk River or the Dan River in Virginia? It does matter that they actually remove the estimated 36,000 tons of coal ash on the river’s bottom, but the perception will remain. The Greenbrier River Watershed has been an agricultural and woodland based economy since it was part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Over the centuries, we have developed destination resorts, river communities, second homes, hunting camps, children’s summer camps, National and State Forests, and the Greenbrier River Trail, all for the specific use of recreating. The river binds our communities and rituals and supplies drinking water for our daily use. Now that tourism and real estate are integral components to our Greenbrier Watershed economy, the quality of our future environmental and economic interests must not be dictated to us by out of state corporations for their benefit alone. For the generations to live after ours in the splendor of the Alleghenies. Jeffrey Eisenbeiss Renick Please contribute to the Greenbrier River Watershed Association, P.O. Box 1419, Lewisburg, WV 24901.
