Don’t let the SSEP pipeline damage Virginia waterways!
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
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Precious waterways in Pittsylvania County, Virginia — such as the Banister River, Cherrystone Creek and Dan River — provide habitat for wildlife, supply drinking water resources to communities and offer recreational opportunities. But these waterways are now under threat from a massive methane gas pipeline called the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project.
Starting in Pittsylvania, Williams Transco wants to expand its network of polluting pipelines across the region, imperiling waterways and deepening the climate crisis. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is currently considering two permits for the SSEP pipeline, and your help is needed to oppose them!
These two permits would authorize pipeline construction that would impact local wetlands and waterways. Your voice is needed to tell DEQ why these waterways, aquatic life and surrounding communities should not be forced to endure another destructive methane gas pipeline.
Add your voice today to say NO to the SSEP and YES to protecting Virginia’s waterways:
Sponsored by
To:
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
From:
[Your Name]
The undersigned individuals write to ask that you please deny the Virginia Water Protection Permit and Upland Certification for the proposed Southeast Supply Enhancement Project Pipeline (SSEP). The SSEP’s proposed crossings of streams and wetlands pose substantial harms to aquatic habitat, fish and wildlife, causing sedimentation and in some cases permanently damaging these public resources.
Specifically, Williams Transco proposes 70 stream crossings in Virginia alone, many of which will use dry-ditch, open-cut methods that risk increased pollution of drinking water and harm to habitat. Trenching through Virginia’s streams and wetlands must be prohibited when there are far less destructive methods available, including tunneling underneath.
The pipeline route directly crosses the Banister River, Sandy River, Cherrystone Creek, a drinking water source for Chatham, and the Dan River, which supplies most drinking water to Pittsylvania County. The Dan River is still recovering from a coal ash spill in 2014, and is an important source of recreation for the local community.
The project could burden threatened or sensitive species including mussels and fish. Additional surveying for the James River spinymussel and the Atlantic pigtoe mussel — two species federally listed as endangered and threatened, respectively— should be done by Transco to ensure that they will not be negatively harmed by the project.
Cumulative impacts from the dual construction of SSEP and the similarly routed Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate should also be considered, as streams and wetlands crossed by both projects, and watersheds with multiple crossings, could experience compounding negative effects. By not considering cumulative impacts from the two projects, the agency ignores the combined threats to Virginia streams and wetlands.
Additionally, careful analysis is needed to determine if both instream and upland construction will cause violations of Virginia’s narrative water quality criteria.
Simply put, the project will be too burdensome to Virginia’s waterways, at the cost of our communities and wildlife.
Please deny the Virginia Water Protection Permit and Upland Certification for the proposed Southeast Supply Enhancement Project Pipeline (SSEP).