Preserve Floyd

12/13/2025

Dec. 18: Final Virginia hearing for Southeast Supply Enhancement Project

Start: Thursday, December 18, 2025•05:00 PM

Location: Institute For Advanced Learning and Research, Barkhouser Auditorium • 150 Slayton Ave, Danville, VA 24540 US

Doors open at 5 p.m. with the hearing beginning at 6 p.m., eligible participants wishing to speak must register by 7:30 p.m.. The hearing will end after the last eligible, registered speaker or 9 p.m., whichever occurs first. Eligible participants are those who commented, either in person at the draft permit or tentative certification public hearings, or in writing during the draft permit or tentative certification public comment periods from Sept. 20 to Nov. 10, 2025, and included their name; either their mailing address or email address; and a statement of how they are affected by the pending action.

https://appvoices.org/events/dec-18-va-deq-ssep-hearing/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOpilxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeXfliY_FflG9vd7yKe54FHpSCvnVqSQ57y4XgCv9RzJLi6xEzit0Kg-Gc6Og_aem_fXsSj3yxP6BzM7-3DkSC-Q

12/03/2025

IMPORTANT EDIT: It seems that in our eagerness for the permit to be denied there was some confusion over an article from the past. We strive to be accurate but sometimes mistakes are made. This article is from 2021. :(

So...we are setting our sights on the day the permit WILL BE DENIED. :)

Future VICTORY! Permit for MVP compressor station in Chatham VA will be DENIED ✊

It's NEVER a done deal. And this decision, predicated upon Union Hill and the Environmental Justice Act, could be groundbreaking. Please, please, CELEBRATE this victory! It's a big one. :)

Please lend your shoulder to the ongoing wheel of justice and compressor stations by supporting the work of Protect Our Water Heritage Rights. ARTivism Virginia, Appalachian Voices and many other groups and individuals and communities who are resisting the proposed compressor station in Elliston VA. For more information, please contact Crystal Mello at [email protected].

Thank you, friends, for staying with this fight for ELEVEN years. We are so grateful for everyone who is still showing up!

Together we are stronger

Gas compressor station denied permit by state board.

08/14/2024

Elizabeth McCommon of Blacksburg, VA passed away on August 1st, 2024. She was well known for her environmental activism, song writing and acting. Over the course of her career, she was a second-generation social worker, an adjunct professor at VA Tech and an editorial contributor to the Roanoke Times.

Rest in Power, dear friend. Thank you for valuing and protecting our water. Thank you for your fracktivism. Watch over us.

From 2015:
“Unified voices help us feel stronger because our individual voices feel unheard,” said environmental activist and songwriter Elizabeth McCommon. McCommon, who raised her children in Floyd County and currently lives in Blacksburg, led some of the chants and sang her song, Letter from Home. “We want jobs that are clean and green, not dirty pipelines poisoning streams.”

– The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on August 20, 2015. Television news reporters from WSLS10 and WDBJ7 came out to film footage of Hands Across Our Land (HAOL), a nationwide ci…

05/10/2024

My old friends at Appalachian Voice are still fighting for justice, public health and the environment. Thank you.

The late Kingston coal ash cleanup worker Tommy Johnson tells the story of his work on the 2008 Kingston coal ash spill and the health effects he struggled w...

06/17/2023

Feeling a little confused about what's going on with the MVP now that we're NINE YEARS into this fight?

Join Protect Our Water Heritage Rights on June 22 at 7 pm to talk about next steps.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is set to resume construction due to a green light given by Congress, with support from President Biden. This call is intended for community members who live by the rou…

05/18/2023

"The U.S Forest Service has approved a key permit for the proposed 6.6 billion dollar Mountain Valley pipeline to run through part of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia and West Virginia.

Conservation and climate groups have been trying to block the fracked gas pipeline for years. In a statement, the Wilderness Society said "the forest service has bent to the will of the oil and gas industry and is placing fossil fuel profits above our environment and Public Safety."

One key backer of the pipeline has been West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin."

-Democracy Now, May 17, 2023
https://youtu.be/S4x48Fteifc

04/03/2023

"Today’s ruling uplifts the tireless efforts of every single coalition member and volunteer fighting to protect land, water and people,” said Russell Chisholm, managing director for the Protect Our Water Heritage Rights Coalition. “Mountain Valley Pipeline’s assurances don’t match the facts as documented in violation after violation. MVP should abandon their ill-fated project because we will defend every stream and river crossing that can still be saved from permanent harm.”

“West Virginia communities have endured Mountain Valley Pipeline’s damage to their water resources and environment for far too long,” said Jessica Sims Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices. “The WVDEP’s insufficient safeguards have been exposed, and this ruinous project must be canceled.”

“West Virginia has been ground zero for the MVP and this ruling today makes clear that communities from West Virginia to North Carolina have worked together to protect the water,” said Dr. CA Cavalier - Keck, co-founder of 7 Directions of Service. “People need investment in clean, fossil-fuel free, non-extractive energy — not the MVP — and developers should cancel the project.”

RICHMOND, Va. — Today, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit vacated the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Clean Water Act § 401 certification for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, finding that the agency’s justification behind its conclusion that...

04/03/2023

”Less than a week after the Mountain Valley Pipeline moved a step closer to completion, it suffered another step backward Monday.

A federal appeals court reversed a water quality certification from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, an authorization needed by the natural gas pipeline to cross streams and wetlands in the state where it starts.

Mountain Valley's past violations of erosion and sedimentation control regulations figured prominently in a decision by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Certification from both states — through which the 303-mile pipeline runs — is needed before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can issue a final approval for water body crossings.

"This should be a huge blow to the project," said David Sligh, conservation director for Wild Virginia, one of the environmental groups that has filed repeated legal challenges against permits issued to Mountain Valley."

Authorization to cross streams and wetlands in West Virginia was thrown out Monday by a federal appeals court.