Rally rejects fracking, gas export terminal

Cumberland Times-News

By Matthew Bieniek

CUMBERLAND — Speakers during the local stop in a statewide series of town hall meetings against a planned $3.8 billion gas export terminal in Cove Point said the project will bring further pressure to develop natural gas in Western Maryland. Speakers also said the planned natural gas terminal would move state policy away from a current emphasis on clean energy.

Cumberland’s stop for the meetings was Wednesday at the New Embassy Theatre, where about 50 people showed up.

Cove Point is in Calvert County on the Chesapeake Bay. The Cove Point project was linked to fracking by speakers and by informational material distributed to participants.

“If approved, the Cove Point export facility would provide a strong economic incentive for companies to expand fracking across our region, including in Maryland, where no drilling has yet occurred. In other states, the expansion of fracking has caused drinking water contamination, air pollution, illnesses and even earthquakes,” according to the informational material.

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Safe Coast Conference Launches Bigger, Bolder Coastal Climate Movement

On Saturday, November 16th, more than 120 Virginians came together in Norfolk to launch the next phase of grassroots action to protect Virginia’s coastal communities from climate change. The science is clear: rising sea levels and more powerful storms – driven by our burning of fossil fuels – are already causing frequent flooding and disrupting lives, business and critical civilian and naval infrastructure up and down the coast.
As DeLevay Miner, a local resident featured in the documentary premiered at the conference, Sea of Change, said, “You cannot depend on the history before because everything is changing.”
If this urgent reality was what motivated so many to spend their Saturday at the “Safe Coast Virginia” conference (see pictures here), the question of what we can and must DO about it was the theme that charged the day.
Here are three big takeaways from the conference that will galvanize our action moving forward:
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Cove Point residents would feel brunt of Dominion’s scheme

For starters, Cove Point will need a new name. Rising seas from fossil-fueled climate change will eventually submerge the jut of land that gives this area its name.
But that’s only one longer-term consequence of Dominion’s scheme to liquefy fracked gas in Calvert County and ship it around the globe. The company’s planned $3.8 billion facility would change the historic and rural Cove Point area in ways we are only beginning to measure. This project would increase fracking, compressor stations and pipelines, jeopardizing towns all over the Marcellus Shale and wrecking our climate faster. But it would also industrialize the community of Lusby on the Chesapeake Bay.
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Hybrid Tax Repeal Campaign Takes First Step Forward

On July 1st 2013, one of the worst ideas of the year became law in Virginia: the state began taxing climate-conscious owners of hybrid vehicles $64 per year. In response to this absurdity, Democratic Delegate Scott Surovell and Senator Adam Ebbin joined me to protest the tax and announced their intention to introduce a bill repealing it during the 2014 General Assembly session. Yesterday, on the first day to pre-file bills for the upcoming session, the two legislators kept true to their word.
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Maryland Crossroads Tour Draws Largest Crowd Yet

By Arielle Conti, Grassroots Organizing Intern
An eager and energetic crowd packed into The Brown Center’s Falvey Hall on Tuesday for the Baltimore Tour Stop of the Maryland Crossroads Tour. After great turnouts in Annapolis, St. Mary’s and Silver Spring, Baltimore was the 4th and largest stop of the tour. The turnout proved Marylanders do not want to take the “radical detour” of exporting fracked gas from Cove Point and instead want to continue to see clean energy grow in our state.
The evening began with the soothing, rooted sounds of Artie and the Vipers and kicked off with Mike Tidwell, CCANs Founder and Director, recognizing and rewarding local Baltimore Climate Heroes. Thanks again to Maryland Environmental Health Network, Free Your Voice, and Nina Beth Cardin for all you do to help fight climate change in your city.
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Food Safety Modernization Act: Bad for Farmers, Bad for Consumers

As part of our Maryland Crossroads Tour, CCAN is presenting Climate Hero awards to local leaders who have made a difference in the climate movements in their communities and across the state. 
Last Thursday when accepting his Climate Hero award, Mike Tabor, local sustainable farmer and environmental activist, raised the issue of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Mr. Tabor shared how FSMA will radically change our food system and limit our food choices if it is funded.
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Safe Coast Virginia Conference: One-of-a-kind climate action this Saturday!

Coastal Virginia is at the center of the fight against climate change. That’s why, this Saturday from 9:30-4:30pm Hampton Roads residents and Virginians from across the commonwealth are coming together in Norfolk for the Safe Coast Virginia Conference. Community and clean energy leaders, scientific experts and climate champions from Virginia and beyond will deliver keynotes and lead discussions about the threat of rising seas and bigger storms and how we can move towards a clean energy future that keeps us safe.
To join us, you can pre-register for the Safe Coast Virginia Conference online until midnight November 14th, or register at the door.
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Cove Point community deserves to hear from Dominion

Dear Dominion,
Can we talk?
You say you want to meet with the community, get the facts out about your $3.8 billion plan to export liquefied fracked gas from Cove Point to India and Japan. But where are you?
“We tend to overcommunicate,” Bruce McKay, Dominion managing director of federal affairs, said inexplicably on WEAA-FM’s Marc Steiner radio program Nov. 11.
We would like to see this “overcommunication” in action.
On the program, McKay said: “But if there’s some people that don’t feel they’ve heard enough from us along the way, let us know. We are going through and meeting with every community group that we can.”

Dominion’s Bruce McKay
asked residents to contact
him if they haven’t heard
enough about the project.

OK, Dominion, all you have to do is stop at any home, any gas station, any store in southern Calvert County and ask: “Do you know anything about the $3.8 billion fossil fuel plant Dominion is proposing?” The answer you will likely get is that people know next to nothing. And this is your fault, Dominion. If you have “overcommunicated” with residents, why haven’t they heard from you? Leading homeowners associations haven’t been contacted by you either.
So, Dominion, we’re letting you know. You are failing in the communication department. Calvert County residents, we’re letting you know, too. Email covepoint@dom.com to let Dominion know you are being kept in the dark.
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Exporting natural gas is a bad deal for Maryland

The Washington Post
By James McGarry
Imagine somebody offered you a deal. First, you have to agree to take a pay cut at your job. Second, you have to agree to pay more for basic necessities such as food and electricity. Third, you have to breathe dirtier air and live next to a dirtier Chesapeake Bay. And what do you get in exchange for all this pain? You get to watch a handful of companies that are already doing extremely well make a lot more money. Would you take that deal?
When it comes to exporting U.S. natural gas from a drilling process called fracking, that’s the tradeoff for the public.
Virginia-based Dominion Resources wants to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the Chesapeake Bay via a facility at Cove Point in southern Maryland. This project would not only damage our state’s environment, it is also part of an unwise potential national shift toward exporting natural gas, which threatens the economy and jeopardizes our country’s goal of reducing harmful greenhouse gas pollution.
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Cove Point controversy draws growing media attention statewide

At one time, few people came to Dominion’s public meetings because they were “so boring,” an almost wistful Dominion spokesman, Don Donovan, told WAMU-FM in recent a news report.
Well, they’re attending now. Calvert County residents are taking note and finding nothing boring about Dominion’s plan for a $3.8 billion facility at Cove Point to export fracked natural gas to India and Japan.
People don’t come “unless somebody scares them to come,” Donovan said.
Or maybe they find out the stark truths hidden behind the fancy news releases about jobs (not so many permanent ones) and tax revenue (minus some hefty tax giveaways). After a news conference called by a Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN)-led coalition in September, regional media have been waking up to Calvert County as ground zero in this scheme. And residents of Lusby, who live closest to the planned facility, are making their voices heard. So far, coverage of the “Clean Energy, Not Cove Point” campaign has appeared in Southern Maryland Newspapers Online (SoMdNews), Bay Net, the Bay Journal, WAMU-FM, the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, the Daily Record (subscription req’d), the Frederick News-Post, and WJZ-TV.
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