Category: Blog

Today marks the third group of arrests in a series of peaceful Cove Point protests that have crossed Maryland — from Cumberland to Frederick to Calvert County — over the past few weeks. Six Maryland residents were peacefully arrested today outside the Calvert County courthouse in Prince Frederick protesting Virginia-based Dominion Resources’ plan to build its Cove Point liquefied natural gas export facility in nearby Lusby. The protesters, led by a retired nurse and former Air Force reservist from Lusby and including five students, blocked the courthouse entrance to demand justice in the federal handling of Dominion’s controversial $3.8 billion plan.
This demonstration comes shortly after Dominion publicly admitted for the first time that a six-story tall and three-quarter mile long wall—previously referred to only as a “sound abatement wall”—is part of an apparently unprecedented and untested barrier wall system that would be constructed to protect nearby residents from vapor gas clouds. Local citizens said this revelation only underscores the need for federal regulators to hold Dominion’s plans to the highest level of scrutiny by completing a full Environmental Impact Statement.
In the following statements, the six Marylanders explain why Cove Point threatens our communities, and why they engaged in peaceful civil disobedience to stop it. (Click here for a PDF of their statements.)

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David Hardy
Lusby, Maryland
My name is David Hardy. I’m a retired Registered Nurse and retired Civil Engineering Craftsman from the Air Force Reserves. I live in Chesapeake Ranch Estates about 3 miles from the proposed Dominion Cove Point LNG Export Facility.
Personally, I have a lot of concerns regarding this project.
I’m concerned about Little Cove Point Road and the traffic on this small state road with buses hauling construction workers in and out and large construction trucks hauling equipment, materials and supplies. I feel sorry for the folks who live in this area who will have large lowboys rumbling through in the middle of the night while they deliver the generators and compressors. Dominion promises to deliver the heavy equipment during the night to cut down on traffic problems. But they haven’t promised to repair the road after the oversized and overweight trucks tear it up. Looks like the State Highway Administration will foot the bill for keeping it repaired since it is a state road.
I’m concerned about the dust and emissions from the construction. It’s going to take an awful lot of truckloads of dirt to build the noise barrier. My rough calculations, figuring a 3/4 mile by 60 foot high dirt monument, comes to roughly 533 thousand cubic yards of material. That’s about 53,000 dump truck loads of dirt. Where is that coming from and how is it getting to the site?
I’m concerned about the perpetual noise from the compressors running night and day. The carbon dioxide from the 4th largest power plant in the state that is going to be built to provide power to the compressors and refrigerators that are needed to cool the dirty gas down 300 degrees to make it a liquid.
I am worried sick about the hazardous chemicals that are going to be removed at Cove Point, that come from the ‘fracking’ process, that now have to be disposed of. Where??? At Sweetwater Road landfill? There will be a lot of things like mercury, benzene, and heavy metals that will have to go somewhere.
I am concerned about the danger of explosion of all of the volatile gasses that will be coming through the pipeline from the gas fields. There have been some recent gas pipeline explosions and fires causing destruction and death in neighboring states. Do we want this in Calvert County? I am concerned about the emergency evacuation route that passes through Chesapeake Ranch Estates. Our roads can’t handle a mass evacuation of Cove Point residents added to our own.
This export plant is planning for 100 ships a year to export this gas to Japan and India. And they have a permit for 200 ships a year. Why?? We need the gas right here in the USA to power our homes, factories and power plants.  We don’t need the gas to be shipped overseas halfway around the world to keep our gas prices inflated at home.
I’m concerned about pipeline leakage contributing to more and more greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere causing more and more global warming.  It was recently reported that gas pipelines leak over 3% of their capacity. Dominion is projecting 5 million tons of production a year. That’s 15,000 tons a day! A 3% loss would be 450 tons of methane and ethane and other volatile gasses lost into the air we breathe each and every day. As if we don’t have enough asthma, COPD and other breathing problems now. And this is a very conservative estimate of pipeline losses. Some reports have the number at twice what I’m saying.
I’m frankly frightened by the prospect of a LNG plant being 3 miles from a nuclear power plant. I sure hope there is some of that tax money spent on increased security offshore for both facilities. We could have our own Armageddon if an LNG ship was to explode at the nuclear plant.
I’m concerned about the offsite areas that Dominion needs just for construction of the plant. About the pier within yards of the Thomas Johnson Bridge; our only evacuation route in case of an accident. One misdirected barge carrying large compressors could close down this vital highway artery.
I’m concerned with the ballast water that the ships from Japan and India will be delivering to waters in or near our beloved Chesapeake Bay. Water that is contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. The water from the inbound India ships will be contaminated with Vibrio and other disease forming microbes and Pfisteria and other algae which can produce toxic blooms. We don’t need more invasive species in the Bay to destroy our valuable fisheries and recreation resources.
Those of us who live in Southern Calvert County are really concerned about our quality of life being degraded by a large industrial facility being built so close to our homes, schools and churches. Several of our homeowner associations have already gone on record to protest this invasion of our quiet enjoyment of our property.
We need jobs in Southern Maryland, but please let them come from other enterprises that do not harm our environment or force people to listen to constant noise or breathe polluted air or drink hazardous water.
Thank you for listening to my concerns.

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Ashok Chandwaney
St. Mary’s City, Maryland
My name is Ashok Chandwaney. I’m a second semester senior at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and I live in a world that is on the cusp of a global climate catastrophe. With reckless disregard for our health or safety, companies like Dominion are trying to construct export facilities from coast to coast, including near where I was born in Washington State.
These fights all have something in common: radical companies, bent on profiting off fossil fuels no matter how it affects the local community and the world at large. In Washington, they want to run asthma-causing coal trains through densely populated areas. Here, Dominion’s proposal makes it quite clear that they aren’t concerned with health or safety either. They’re concerned their stockpiles of chemicals may produce “fireballs,” a risk they plan to “mitigate” with an untested and skyscraping concrete wall. What if the wall fails?  Who gave them the right to put local families at risk?
But even if they weren’t planning on explosions at Cove Point, the expansion Cove Point will affect the people who live nearby. This proposal is an environmental nightmare: it will poison the air and soil that over 300 families breathe and live in. Dominion’s own workers will be exposed to these dangerous airborne chemicals too, and facing (along with local families) high risks of asthma and heart disease.
Once Dominion builds this gargantuan facility, they’re going to want more natural gas to sell from it to make their profits. That means building more leaky natural gas pipelines across the state, which means seizing people’s back yards and farmland with eminent domain and then tainting them when their pipes inevitably leak. That means starting to frack here, bringing earthquakes and flammable tap water to Maryland.
I want a future with clean air and water my children can swim in and safe jobs so families can have both their health and food on the table. I want a future where St. Mary’s hasn’t been inundated by the rising sea levels that Cove Point would accelerate. I want a future with clean energy, not Cove Point — and that’s why I participated in a civil disobedience today.

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Ruth Tyson
St. Mary’s City, Maryland
As a local student and passionate environmentalist, I don’t see any other way to stress the urgency of raising awareness about this plan. This is something worth fighting for. Dominion has their voice being heard. They have funds to make sure their story is shared. I don’t have money to buy radio commercials or place fancy posters all over the state with the full story. What I do have is my body and a right to express myself. I’m willing to put everything on the line if that will make people pay attention.
Cove Point expansion will jeopardize the health, economies, land, and water of local people affected by the fracking gas that is processed as well as communities surrounding the facility. Are a few jobs really worth our health? How do you put a price on the future generations affected by climate change that Cove Point’s greenhouse gas emissions will greatly contribute to? What is the cost of clean air and water? We should be investing our resources in clean, renewable energy. Liquified natural gas isn’t the answer to anyone’s energy crisis. I want legislators, Dominion, and most importantly, the people, to see that this isn’t a wise decision. We value our environment and our people’s health. This isn’t a time to be passive and accept business as usual. We’re speaking out because we can’t sit back anymore and it’s time for Dominion to start listening.

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Emily Tanner
St. Mary’s City, Maryland
I am one of the students being arrested at the courthouse this Thursday in opposition to the proposed LNG Export Facility at Cove Point.
I did not grow up in Maryland. I grew up on the coast of Virginia, and I did not know much at all about Maryland until I came to St. Mary’s College in the fall of 2011. I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay and now I live by the St. Mary’s River and it always feels wrong to me when I’m away from the water. Growing up, I watched the Chesapeake Bay deteriorate as more and more pollutants were shuttled in to the precious estuary and I heard about the endangerment of the blue crabs, sea birds, and oysters that call the Bay home. I watched as more and more trash washed up on protected beaches and every time I heard about a new oil spill far away, I worried that it would one day be my home.
My friends in Virginia make fun of me now because I’ve fallen so deeply in love with Maryland and all that the state represents. Now I see a new threat to my new home on the horizon. The Cove Point LNG Export Facility would be located about 20 miles away from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and any problems on the site would undoubtedly create problems here. The potential for disastrous spills, air pollution, and water contamination is undeniable. The site is a high risk area and, as we know, pipelines leak so a pipeline carrying gas across the entire state seems like a pretty bad idea if you ask me. I am worried about Maryland, I am worried about St. Mary’s, and I am worried that we are soon to follow in the United States’ new legacy of oil spills, fracking, and the careless treatment of our precious Earth.
Cove Point will open Maryland to Fracking, in addition to the multitude of other issues it would bring to the state. What we have been told is that the natural gas basins in Maryland (with the exception of the Marcellus Shale in the West) are too deep to frack, but the Marcellus Shale was once too deep for drilling too. If Fracking is profitable for gas companies, it will find its way into Maryland and Cove Point is setting that dangerous precedent for us right now. With fracking comes destruction and I don’t want to see my new home go the way that so many others have. I want our water to be drinkable, our air to be breathable, and our world to livable. Cove Point has the potential to take all of that away from me and from you. It’s time to stand up and say no to Dominion.

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Ori Gutin
College Park, Maryland
People often think that activists, environmental or otherwise, enjoy getting arrested. People on the periphery of environmental or social movements think activists get some type of pleasure, or high, from engaging in civil disobedience. Well, to those people I say, you could not be more wrong. No child grows up wanting to be arrested or to engage in civil disobedience. However, children do grow up loving the planet around them, the trees, waters, fresh air, bugs in the dirt, birds in the sky, and fish in the sea. In fact, I was one of them. I also grew up naively thinking that no one would ever try and take away those things that I loved. Unfortunately, childhood is fleeting, reality is stark, and money is powerful. The truth is there are many people out there who are constantly trying to marginalize the things that I and many others love in the name of profit.
Dominion Resources is the perfect example. They are an out of state company that wants to come into my beautiful home state of Maryland and build a 3.8 billion dollar environmental catastrophe. Why? To boost their profit, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. They are not here because they want to help Maryland’s economy, provide jobs, or even provide LNG to foreign markets. They are here to make money. Dominion is willing to compromise the health of the bay, the air quality of the surrounding community, and not to mention the climate because they want money, plain and simple. And after they’ve made their money and have left Maryland, who will be left with this damage in a few years? Me. My brothers and sisters. My friends. My classmates. My entire generation. This cannot happen.
I have spent countless hours fighting against this facility. I have petitioned, written op-eds, rallied, testified in front of the Public Service Commission, gotten the UMD Student Government Association to officially oppose this project, made phone calls to Senators, met with Senators, written letters, and more. And to some extent it is making a difference, but not nearly enough, and not nearly quickly enough.
So, no; no activist wants to get arrested. We don’t get a high or take pleasure in it. But when an issue like Cove Point arises that is so potentially damaging to all the things you love in this world, and nothing else seems to be making a big enough difference, how can you not do absolutely everything in your power to stop it? So today, I will put my body on the line to physically plead with lawmakers and regulators like FERC and PSC to stop siding with corporate profits, and start protecting the planet and the people on it by saying no to Dominion Cove Point. I pray that they listen.

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Gabriel McKinney
St. Mary’s City, Maryland
As a Christian, my morality is based on the Love of God whom I believe created all things. In my Love for him I find my love for all of his creation, be it the Earth or the Animals or plants or Humans. That love which I hold forbids me to destroy this glorious, beautiful, and nurturing creation. While I do not believe that the fight to save this creation from those who wish to destroy it for their own personal gain is The End, I do believe that The End is Love, and that I therefore must participate with all of my power to make sure that That End is achieved. And towards this End of Love, I must fight with all radical, peaceful, and Loving ways to preserve this thing given to us by a God whom I know to be Loving, radical, and peaceful.
In the building of a structure which will destroy the habitats and livelihoods of the humans and of the wildlife in that area known as Cove Point, I do not see any Love. In giving wealth and power to a few while subjugating many others to depravity and the destruction and perversion of this, our World, home, and all our material sustenance, I do not perceive any Love. In justifying this action of the destruction of the wealth and homes of those, plant, animal, and humans by saying that we are giving jobs to other Americans and strengthening our nation, not only do I fail to glean where Love might reside in this action but I fail to perceive the logic. What use is it to wrench the livelihood of one man from his hands to place it into another? How does destroying the very ground on which we walk, the air we breathe, and the water we drink, build the Nation in which we live? To achieve this End, Love, I wish to use any peaceful power at my disposal towards preventing this heinously unloving action.

Six months ago, few average Marylanders had heard of “Cove Point,” let alone understood the stakes for our communities and climate. Now, the fight to stop Dominion Resources’ proposed fracked gas export facility on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland is making state and national headlines.
The issue broke onto the national scene in January when national climate leader and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben coauthored A Big Fracking Lie in Politico Magazine with CCAN’s director Mike Tidwell. The opinion piece was a big (anti-)fracking success and, at more than 10,000 shares, it was one of the most shared Politico pieces in January. The piece explained in detail why Cove Point would be a disaster for our climate, spurring a new wave of fracking in the mid-Atlantic and causing climate polluting emissions equivalent to burning coal, and challenged President Obama to abandon his support for fracked gas exports.

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The Huffington Post
by Caroline Selle
There was a time when “Stop the Keystone XL!” seemed like an unlikely rallying cry for the U.S. environmental movement. After all, plenty of pipelines receive permits every year without much outrage, so why would TransCanada’s request be any different? Plus, the fuel was coming from Canada, the country’s friendly northern neighbor. What could be the downside?
Plenty, according to environmental advocates. From the First Nations people who live near extraction sites in Canada, to Nebraskan farmers and ranchers concerned about the pipeline crossing a major aquifer, to families who live in Texas neighborhoods polluted by refineries, lots of people have a stake in the fight. And for climate activists, the pipeline is a test of the Obama administration’s seriousness about cutting greenhouse gas emissions and ending reliance on fossil fuels. The pipeline quickly became a symbol of resistance and the center of the fight over climate policy.
If the Keystone XL is approved (an answer is expected as soon as late May), what will the U.S. environmental movement rally around next? The power plant rules that the Environmental Protection Agency is working on will be an important step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but there’s no clear “ask,” as organizers like to say, other than “please finalize them.”
Enter the Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. Located in Lusby, Md., Cove Point sits on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, only a 90-minute drive from Washington, D.C. Local environmental groups want to make Cove Point the next Keystone XL when it comes to organizing opposition.
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WAMU 88.5
By: Jonathan Wilson
The Maryland Public Service commission is in the midst of deciding whether Dominion can move forward with a $3.8 billion expansion of its Cove Point Liquefied Natural Gas facility in Calvert County and environmental groups continue to put pressure on state officials to reject the plan.
Hundreds of protesters gathered on War Memorial Plaza in downtown Baltimore, many holding signs with anti-fracking slogans, or mini cardboard windmills to show their support for energy alternatives.
Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, compared the current fight to stop Dominion’s natural gas export plans to the battle, decades ago, to get the truth out about the health risks of tobacco.
“And that’s why we need an Environmental Impact Statement, because it is the equivalent of a Surgeon General’s report,” Tidwell said. “We need a Surgeon General’s report for Cove Point, when that comes out, Marylanders will be appalled and repelled by this idea and it won’t get built.”
But Dominion maintains that voices like Tidwell’s are simply a vocal minority, and point out that exporting more natural gas is part of the President’s clean energy agenda.
Jeff Guido is a spokesman for the Maryland state pipe trades association — a union whose members would get many of the thousands of construction jobs that would come with the project. He says the economic benefits of Cove Point would ripple across the state.
“We need it, we need it bad,” Guido said. “You’ll see that when a construction worker goes to work, and he knows he’s got some employment in front of him — they’re all gonna go out and buy a new pick up truck, it’s just what we do.”
After this week’s evidentiary hearing, the Public Service Commission will gather input from residents close to Cove point at a public hearing in Lusby on March 1.

The Baltimore Sun
By Jamie Smith Hopkins
An estimated 500 people rallied Thursday in Baltimore against plans to export liquefied natural gas from a Southern Maryland facility, chanting and carrying signs past the office tower where state regulators were considering one aspect of that proposal.
The authority to approve or reject the project lies with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But Maryland’s Public Service Commission has the say over a 130-megawatt power plant that energy company Dominion says it needs for the export operation.
The proposal has drawn powerful support — including from Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Southern Maryland Democrat — as well as opposition from the Sierra Club and other groups, largely on environmental grounds. Both sides used this week’s hearings as an opportunity to get their message out.
Dominion, which owns the Cove Point complex, held a news conference Wednesday with supporters, including a construction union official and a Maryland manufacturer. They characterized the project as an economic boon and said exporting natural gas to replace coal would help the environment.
The rally against the project drew people from across the state — many opposed to a controversial technique known as “fracking” used to extract natural gas — and temporarily closed streets in downtown Baltimore at lunchtime. Speakers included Del. Heather Mizeur, a Democrat who is running for governor.
“I’ve been doing this for 12 years,” said Mike Tidwell, executive director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, which helped organize Thursday’s event and estimated the crowd at about 700. “I’ve never been at an environmental rally … this big.”
A police spokesman could not provide a crowd estimate Thursday. Dominion spokesman Chet Wade said it counted fewer than 300 people.
Opponents contend that exporting natural gas from Cove Point would increase demand for hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting the gas that environmentalists say pollutes groundwater and air but that the industry says is safe.
Dominion officials said the project should not be seen as a “proxy” for fracking, including whether to allow the method in Maryland. Cove Point exports could come from as far afield as the Gulf Coast through the country’s network of pipelines, said Pamela F. Faggert, the company’s chief environmental officer.
“Nor would stopping the Cove Point project likely reduce fracking elsewhere,” Faggert said. “Cove Point exports would account for only a small sliver of the gas that could be produced in the United States. Without Cove Point, the only question is where the natural gas would go instead.”
That argument didn’t fly with rally participants. Paul Roberts, who runs a winery in Western Maryland and sits on the state commission studying fracking, said he’s concerned the state will be under far more pressure to allow the technique if natural gas interests can export from Cove Point.
“It would be very terrible if all the work we’ve put in is undermined,” Roberts said.
Cove Point is an import facility for liquefied natural gas. The market for bringing that product into the country has dwindled as fracking fueled a natural gas boom in the U.S.
Expanding Dominion’s Calvert County complex to allow exporting would cost as much as $3.8 billion. The company would pay an additional $40 million in annual property taxes for five years, then receive a tax break of 42 percent for nine years.
Drew Greenblatt, president of Marlin Steel Wire Products, a Baltimore manufacturer, is among those who spoke in favor of Cove Point at Dominion’s news conference.
“A thriving natural gas industry, one with access to all potential markets, including overseas markets … will mean more demand for our products in America,” he said. “We should take advantage of it, and we’re very lucky that this has happened to our state.”
Hearings in the Public Service Commission case began Thursday. A hearing for public comment is scheduled for March 1 at Patuxent High School in Lusby, near Cove Point.
The agency must make a decision on the power plant by May 30. The FERC has not set a timeline for a decision, Dominion said.
The early hours of Thursday’s hearing revolved around the project’s impact. Sierra Club attorney Joshua Berman, highlighting reports suggesting that exporting would cause domestic natural gas prices to rise and promote the use of coal, asked a Dominion executive whether he agreed with those conclusions.
Michael D. Frederick, vice president of LNG operations at Cove Point, said the U.S. Department of Energy — which gave Cove Point its OK to export — is charged with ensuring that the move is in the country’s interests.

On February 20th, hundreds of activists from across the mid-Atlantic will come to Baltimore to rally outside the Public Service Commission as they decide on key permits for the proposed Cove Point facility.
If you haven’t already, sign up to join us and be a part of the biggest environmental rally Baltimore has ever seen.
As we get ready for February 20th, we’ve asked a few activists coming to the rally to tell us their story and explain why this issue is so important to them.
What’s your name? Vivian Stockman
What’s your age? 52
Where do you live? Roane County, WV
What do you do for a living? I work for OVEC, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, based in Huntington, WV, www.ohvec.org.
Why is Cove Point important to you? How will your immediate community be affected? Is there already fracking in your neighborhood or do you live in an area that has a gas basin beneath it?
For years, OVEC members have been working to end mountaintop removal coal mining and coal prep plant waste “disposal” via underground coal slurry injection or giant coal sludge dams. We do this work because these extreme coal industry practices are ruining human health and destroying and poisoning our life support systems – our water, land and air. As deep shale gas fracking moved into West Virginia, we began working on this issue too, for the exact same reasons. People are getting sick and once pleasant rural communities are turned into industrial waste zones.
What is your biggest concern surrounding the Cove Point project?
Cove Point would drastically increase the pressure to drill, baby, drill, no matter the consequences. Cove Point would mean a mad dash to export natural gas and that ultimately would mean that our birthright here in West Virginia, clean water, would be sacrificed for the sake of short-term corporate profit.
What message would you deliver to the fossil fuel industry and the folks at Dominion?
Clean water is essential to life. As your industries continue to use our streams, rivers and groundwater for dumping toxic waste, you are creating a vast network of people from all walks of life who are rising up. Water unites us. Poison water unites us in action. We will defend our right to clean water, and we demand truly cleaner renewable energy now. We stand in this defense, we make this demand as if our lives depend on it, for they do.
Remember to sign up now to join Vivian and hundreds of other activists in Baltimore on February 20th. We’ll see you there!