Dear Nelson County Board of Supervisors:

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline proposed to go through Nelson County threatens our property rights, property values, rural heritage, economy and environment. The least we, as unwilling citizens of a directly impacted community deserve, is the assurance that the federal regulatory process responsible for approving and siting the ACP is fair and thorough. Yet, so far, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) intends to analyze the need for and impacts of the ACP in isolation from the three other high-pressure, large-diameter pipelines proposed for the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountain region of Virginia: the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Appalachian Connector, and the WB Express.

Given the scale, regional proximity, and similar purpose of these projects, the only way to accurately assess the impacts and alternatives—and the fundamental need for so many, is to evaluate them together in a single, Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS).

Separate analyses of these pipelines is analogous to a transportation “planning" process that allowed private turnpike companies to build large highways through our region with no entrance or exit ramps and no overall sense of which highways are most needed—with private companies taking property from local residents and businesses and reaping all the profit.

This common sense reality is recognized by the National Environmental Policy Act and affirmed by the courts: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) must evaluate the impacts of related projects with cumulative impacts proposed or reasonably foreseeable in the same geographic region in a single comprehensive EIS.

Please advocate for a just process by petitioning FERC to conduct a PEIS, as well as petitioning our Governor, U.S. Senators and Representative, and the Virginia General Assembly to ask FERC for a PEIS for the ACP. This Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) must comprehensively evaluate the need for these four pipelines; assess the direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of overall pipeline development in this region; and fully consider all reasonable, less-damaging alternatives in a single document.