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Report from panel of Lumbee citizens - The Need for a Culturally Relevant Assessment of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline: Summary and Recommendations

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Report from panel of Lumbee citizens - The Need for a Culturally Relevant Assessment of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline: Summary and Recommendations

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Written by Lumbee Tribe members, this document highlights the potential environmental dangers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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Jordan Revels, environmental activist and member of Lumbee Tribe, discusses importance of Lumbee River and effect of Atlantic Coast Pipeline on the river

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Jordan Revels, environmental activist and member of Lumbee Tribe, discusses importance of Lumbee River and effect of Atlantic Coast Pipeline on the river

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This article contains an interview from Jordan Revels, environmental activist and member of the Lumbee Tribe, who highlights the effect of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline on the Lumbee River and the Lumbee Tribe.

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The Land is Our Identity - The Architectural League of New York

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Jorden Revels shares his story of environmental activism.

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Jordan Revels, environmental activist and member of Lumbee Tribe, discusses importance of Lumbee River and effect of Atlantic Coast Pipeline on the river

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Jordan Revels, environmental activist and member of Lumbee Tribe, discusses importance of Lumbee River and effect of Atlantic Coast Pipeline on the river

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This article includes an interview with Jordan Revels, an environmental activist that's part of the Lumbee Tribe, where he talks about the importance of the Lumbee River and how the effects of anthropogenic climate change on the river ultimately affects the Lumbee Tribe.

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The Land is Our Identity - The Architectural League of New York

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Jorden Revels shares his story of environmental activism.

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The Atlantic Coast Pipeline: Risky and Costly . . . and Unnecessary

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The Atlantic Coast Pipeline: Risky and Costly . . . and Unnecessary

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This article highlights the environmental impacts of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which the Lumbee Tribe used as their reasoning for why the Atlantic Coast Pipeline should get cancelled

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Dominion Energy is determined to complete the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which if built would carry more than a billion cubic feet of fracked gas 600 miles from the mountains of Appalachia to North Carolina and the Virginia coast daily. But so far, Dominion and its partners are batting 0 for 4 when it comes to securing key construction permits for the project. A string of court decisions have stopped construction on the ACP, and the pipeline's backers are hemorrhaging cash. Adding insult to injury, some energy analysts say it might not even be necessary.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, has thrown out nearly every permit needed to build the pipeline along its originally proposed path. In August 2018, the court ruled that the National Park Service violated its conservation mission when it permitted the pipeline to pass underneath the Blue Ridge Parkway, which would have carved a 50-foot-wide scar through the surrounding forest, visible from the popular Three Ridges overlook. Then, in November 2018, the Army Corps of Engineers suspended construction on the project after another adverse court ruling regarding the plans for the pipeline to cross more than 1,500 streams and rivers in West Virginia. Last December, the appeals court revoked a crucial US Forest Service permit needed to allow the pipeline to cut through two national forests and cross the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

Most recently, a panel of federal appeals judges in July threw out a US Fish and Wildlife Service permit, ruling that the agency failed to consider how the pipeline would impact endangered species-including the Indiana bat and the Madison cave isopod, a small, eyeless crustacean that swims in flooded limestone caves beneath the Shenandoah Valley.

The serial setbacks have cost Dominion, which is building the pipeline with Duke Energy and Southern Company, money and its reputation. Each week that goes by without felling a tree or digging a trench costs up to $20 million. The project is now estimated to cost almost $8 billion-more than 50 percent higher than originally thought-with full operation pushed back to 2021. In February, Moody's Investor Service changed its rating of the ACP to "credit negative," citing the project's ballooning costs and delays.

"All of the ACP's problems are entirely self-inflicted," said Greg Buppert, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which led the lawsuits against two of the pipeline's permits. "It was never a good idea to build this pipeline through two national forests, a national park, across the Appalachian Trail, and through the steepest mountains in West Virginia."

Dominion and Duke say public utilities in the Southeast need the pipeline to fuel a new generation of gas-fired electricity. But a report released earlier this year by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, "The Vanishing Need for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline," concluded that the pipeline might not even be necessary-or profitable.

Since the pipeline was first proposed in 2014, demand for natural gas has plateaued and, according to Dominion's own models, is only expected to decrease. Dominion and Duke have delayed or canceled plans to build new gas plants, and facilities just coming online say they can get all the energy they need from existing pipelines. Renewables like solar and wind are already cheaper than gas-in some cases by as much as 60 percent-and, given technological advances and continually falling costs, are only expected to get more competitive. "They can own a giant pipe and pay for the giant pipe, but they'll only be using a fraction of its capacity," said Cathy Kunkel, an author of the report. "That's the risk."

Despite the barriers facing project completion, Dominion continues to calculate the ACP will be worth the rising costs, Kunkel said. With most pipeline projects, energy companies pass on the cost of construction to their ratepayers, a move that needs approval by state utility regulators. The Virginia State Corporation Commission, a three-member panel appointed by the state legislature, is supposed to regulate Dominion. Critics say its approval process-rate hikes are only considered after construction is completed-incentivizes projects like the ACP because the company can charge higher rates to recoup its investment costs. And the further along the project is, the more political pressure regulators could feel to approve rate hikes.

This time, though, there's a risk that regulators will say no. In a rare move last year, the Virginia corporation commission rejected Dominion's long-term plan, accusing the company of overestimating future electricity sales. (For the past decade, Dominion has continued to predict growing electricity demand, while actual demand has remained nearly flat.) In North Carolina, a senate bill that would have allowed Dominion and Duke to apply for multiyear rate increases-currently, the utilities have to reapply every year-has stalled in the state's general assembly. Among the groups that opposed it: the North Carolina Utilities Commission.

"I think there's increasingly a question of whether the regulators in Virginia and North Carolina are going to approve full cost recovery for the pipeline," Kunkel said. "If I were Dominion or Duke, that's a risk I would be concerned about."

There are other ways Dominion and Duke could get a return on their investment ( Friends of the Earth has warned that the ACP could be used as a conduit to export gas to Europe). But pipeline opponents are hoping the pipeline's added costs will be enough to make the companies walk away. It's happened before: In 2005, Dominion abandoned the 520-mile Greenbrier pipeline, which would have been built along a route similar to that of the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline. Aaron Ruby, a spokesman for Dominion, didn't respond to requests for comment; in July, Ruby told WVTF, the NPR affiliate in southwestern Virginia, that Dominion was "committed to completing the [ACP] project."

Buppert, the Southern Environmental Law Center attorney, said that while environmental organizations may see state regulators' frustrations as a hopeful sign, Dominion is likely banking on the fact that rate increases are always approved. But the more delays the pipeline's builders face, the more expensive the project will become-and the more likely it is that Duke and Dominion will be forced to walk away.

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The Atlantic Coast Pipeline: Risky and Costly . . . and Unnecessary

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Dominion Energy is determined to complete the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which if built would carry more than a billion cubic feet of fracked gas 600 miles from the mountains of Appalachia to North Carolina and the Virginia coast daily.

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Dominion cancels Atlantic Coast Pipeline, announces sale of natural gas transmission and storage assets

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Dominion cancels Atlantic Coast Pipeline, announces sale of natural gas transmission and storage assets

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General news article about the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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In a sharp pivot away from natural gas, Dominion Energy announced Sunday that it is canceling the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline and selling "substantially all" of its natural gas transmission and storage assets to a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate.

The decision follows six years of work developing the ACP, of which Dominion controls the majority share, numerous legal battles that invalidated key permits and the utility's continued insistence on the critical role of natural gas in Virginia and North Carolina's energy portfolios.

"The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is needed now more than ever for our region's economy and our path to clean energy," Dominion spokesperson Ann Nallo told the Mercury on June 19. "Communities across Hampton Roads, Virginia and eastern North Carolina are experiencing chronic shortages of natural gas."

In a news release Sunday announcing the project's cancellation, Dominion CEO, president and chairman Tom Farrell and Duke CEO, president and chair Lynn Good continued to describe the pipeline as "much-needed infrastructure" while attributing its demise to "the increasing legal uncertainty that overhangs large-scale energy and industrial infrastructure development in the United States."

"Until these issues are resolved, the ability to satisfy the country's energy needs will be significantly challenged," they concluded.

A major contributor to the cancellation identified by Dominion and Duke Sunday was a series of recent decisions in federal courts prohibiting the issuance of the Nationwide Permit 12 , which developers of natural gas pipelines, among other large utility infrastructure, must obtain when their projects cross bodies of water or wetlands.

These "new and serious challenges," said Dominion and Duke, coupled with ongoing delays related to other permits and rising costs "make the project too uncertain to justify investing more shareholder capital."

Over the past six years the project's cost has ballooned from an initial estimate of $4.5 to $5 billion to more than $8 billion.

Environmental groups and project opponents hailed the announcement Sunday even while voicing disbelief at the sudden decision, which came only weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the pipeline in a case over the project's ability to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail.

"I think this proves what we always knew, which is that pipelines are a bad investment," said Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, whose district lies near the pipeline's path.

Michael Town, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, called the cancellation "a testament to the power of grassroots action, the hundreds of driven, determined, frontline advocates who never stopped fighting this misguided project."

Several groups also struck a note of caution.

" While we welcome the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's demise, this only marks the end to one symptom of the underlying structural problem of Virginia's monopoly utilities - the problem itself remains," said Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia, an advocacy group funded by Charlottesville millionaire Michael Bills that has fought Dominion's influence in the state capital. "We must all remain vigilant and continue working towards the creation of a sensical utility system that prioritizes the public interest and prevents projects like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline from ever being proposed in the first place."

In tandem with the Atlantic Coast announcement, Dominion also said it has agreed to sell "substantially all" of its natural gas transmission and storage assets to an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway in a $9.7 billion deal in which Berkshire Hathaway will assume $5.7 billion of existing debt and pay Dominion $4 billion in cash.

Dominion characterized the move as a repositioning of the company toward a "focus on its premier state-regulated, sustainability-focused utilities."

Farrell said in a company statement that the "narrowing of focus" would also increase long-term earnings growth expectations by about 30 percent.

Among the assets being sold are more than 7,700 miles of natural gas pipelines and about 900 billion cubic feet of gas storage, according to the company.

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Dominion cancels Atlantic Coast Pipeline, announces sale of natural gas transmission and storage assets - Virginia Mercury

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In a sharp pivot away from natural gas, Dominion Energy announced Sunday that it is canceling the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline and selling "substantially all" of its natural gas transmission and storage assets to a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. The decision follows six years of work developing the ACP, of which Dominion controls the majority share, [...]

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What sank the Atlantic Coast Pipeline? It wasn’t just environmentalism.

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What sank the Atlantic Coast Pipeline? It wasn’t just environmentalism.

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This news article analyzed the causes of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's demise

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On a hot Sunday afternoon, Union Hill pastor Paul M. Wilson was sitting on his porch eating seafood when he got a call that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the 600-mile natural gas conduit that he and thousands of others in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina had been fighting for six years, was dead.

At first he couldn't believe it. And he wasn't alone in his skepticism - when Dave Sligh, a pipeline opponent in Charlottesville and conservation director of Wild Virginia, saw a Facebook post with the announcement, his first thought was, "That's not fair, he shouldn't be making jokes like this."

But the calls kept coming.

"Within 15 minutes I got four or five other calls. Some people out of state called me," said Wilson. "Then I knew it was real."

It was, he said, "the best news I've heard in 47 years" - since his wife had agreed to marry him.

In a year of turmoil, the news that Dominion Energy and Duke Energy had decided to pull the plug on the pipeline still managed to be a bombshell. The companies had poured billions into the effort, which was only about 6 percent complete. They had just won a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, which had declared the pipeline could pass beneath the Appalachian Trail. And Dominion CEO, president and chairman Tom Farrell had been adamant over the prior months that the project not only was still viable, but would be done by 2022.

So what happened?

Dominion attributed the pipeline's demise to "ongoing delays and increasing cost uncertainty which threaten the economic viability of the project." In particular, the utility pointed a finger at a string of legal challenges to federal and state permits the pipeline had received and then subsequently saw yanked. The delays had been extremely costly: since the initial $4.5 to $5 billion estimate, the price tag had risen to $8 billion.

"To state the obvious, permitting for investment in gas transmission and storage has become increasingly litigious, uncertain and costly," Farrell told investors on a Monday call. "This trend, though deeply concerning for our country's economic growth and energy security, is a new reality."

President Donald Trump's administration, which had argued on behalf of Dominion before the Supreme Court in February, blamed what U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette on Sunday called "the well-funded, obstructionist environmental lobby," an accusation picked up by industry groups like the U.S. Energy Association, which called out "environmental lobbyists with a myopic view and an ideology-driven agenda."

"Unfortunately, the economic promise of this project is no longer a reality for thousands of Americans in this region," said Brouillette in a statement posted to Twitter . "Instead, Duke and Dominion have had to make the difficult decision to end this project because it is no longer economically viable due to the costly legal battles they would continue to face."

Federal court rulings Monday that halted the Dakota Access pipeline's operations and upheld a freeze on a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline seemed to reinforce the view that Atlantic Coast's demise was just one casualty of a nationwide assault on pipelines. In their wake, many analysts wondered whether natural gas pipelines can still be built in the U.S. at all.

But seeing the ACP's defeat merely as proof that natural gas pipeline projects are increasingly litigious and difficult to build "really ignores the fact that the problems with this project were self-inflicted," said Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Greg Buppert, who has represented project opponents in numerous cases, including the Cowpasture case that went to the Supreme Court.

"There were always different choices that the company could have made. ... Those are decisions that have consequences," he said.

What undid the pipeline in the final accounting may take years to untangle. But interviews with a dozen Virginia opponents of the project pointed to three main drivers of their victory and the developers' defeat: a growing lack of faith in both Dominion and state government, an increasing recognition of environmental injustice and a legislative shift toward renewable energy that will allow Dominion to replace lucrative capital investments in natural gas with investments in wind, solar and storage.

Together, the first two factors led to the forging of an unusually large and persistent grassroots movement that drew from not only different parts of the state, but different causes: clean energy, social and racial justice and property rights. Challenges to the pipeline would come from all three areas, ensnaring the project in the courts as the costs mounted.

"Death by a thousand cuts - that's what I think about it," said Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, a pipeline opponent who has been the state's strongest legislative advocate for a Virginia version of the Green New Deal. "There really wasn't one finger on the scale that was heavier than the rest."

Delaying the pipeline until it became uneconomic wasn't explicitly a strategy, said Lewis Freeman, a Highland County resident who became leader of an anti-ACP coalition called the Allegheny Blue-Ridge Alliance.

"I would have objected had anyone suggested" writing it down, he said. But "at the same time, we were aware that slowing the process down slows the projects down."

And the delays, said Wild Virginia's Sligh, allowed opponents to better present the facts of the case as they saw them to the public. Others saw the years ticking by without energy disruptions as evidence that undermined the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's contention that gas was urgently needed in the region.

"It wasn't just delay for delay's sake. It was delay because it allowed the story to be told over and over and over," Sligh said.

A loss of institutional faith

Love it or hate it, few would deny that the coalition of groups that fought the pipeline was a remarkable example of grassroots organizing. Over time, big-tent movements tend to splinter because of the differences among their members. And in many ways, the groups that joined together to fight the Atlantic Coast Pipeline were unusually diverse: from mountainous areas, cities and rolling farmland, Black and White, affluent and poor and across the political spectrum.

"You could ride through the countryside in some of these communities and see the 'No Pipeline' signs right next to Confederate flags sometimes, or sometimes next to a Trump sign, because the principles that were involved were across the map," said Sligh.

But the coalition didn't disintegrate over the years. And the reason why, as conversations with opposition members revealed, was that many saw grassroots action as the course of last resort when institutions had failed them.

The Atlantic Coast proposal "was a flawed plan that really highlighted the inequities in a flawed regulatory system," said Harrison Wallace, Virginia director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

From the beginning, there was widespread distrust of both Dominion's plans and of the legitimacy of state and federal permitting reviews. The question of need was an early point of skepticism : the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that certificates interstate pipelines requires only agreements with gas offtakers as proof of need - even if, as was the case with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, those agreements are with affiliates of the same companies developing the project.

And even if opponents accepted the utilities' contention that the ACP was urgently needed infrastructure in a region of constrained supply, there were a range of other claims they didn't trust: That the pipeline could be safely built along steep karst terrain and disturbed mountain ridges could be restored. That air quality would not be significantly affected by the construction of a compressor station in the overwhelmingly African American community of Union Hill in Buckingham County. That erosion and sedimentation wouldn't damage water quality along the roughly 300 miles of Virginia and hundreds of waterways the pipeline would cross.

State and federal agencies' assurances that impacts would be minimal did nothing to diminish the opposition. On the contrary, they fueled many opponents' belief that regulators were rubber-stamping a done deal, a view many traced back to the 2014 press conference announcing the project that saw then-Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, appearing alongside Farrell, enthusiastically endorse the ACP.

"It was very hard for the public to see the state as a neutral arbiter," said Buppert. "Gov. McAuliffe made the decision that the state was in favor of this project. And I think the public was rightfully skeptical of what that meant for agency reviews."

So egregious did many opponents find agency action that public meetings themselves became a tool for winning Virginians to their cause. Wallace said that if his group wanted to increase people's commitment to the pipeline fight, they took them to state Air Pollution Control and Water Control Board meetings.

"Those are what agitated our campaign the most," he said.

Sligh, a former Virginia environmental regulator, attributed some of the backlash to what he perceived as the Department of Environmental Quality's "timidity."

"Essentially their posture has been in so many circumstances, 'Unless you can force us by going to court and beating us, then we're not going to do it,'" he said. "They could have gone so much further in protecting water quality in these 401 (certification) cases than they did, and they just would not take the most protective stance that they have the power and the duty to do."

As protests became legal challenges, with the opposition largely represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Sierra Club, a series of judicial rulings seemed to bolster the anti-ACP coalition's claims that the state and federal agencies had rushed to sign off on the project as judges repeatedly found that reviews had been inadequate and incomplete. At the time Dominion and Duke canceled the pipeline, eight necessary state and federal permits had been withdrawn.

"If those permits had actually been issued in a way that met the law, the courts never would have overturned them," said Tom Hadwin, a retired utility executive who fought the pipeline as part of ABRA.

Over time, said some opponents, cracks even began to appear among Dominion employees and contractors. In Buckingham, Wilson said some utility representatives privately told him they didn't think the project was solid - conversations Freeman said he'd also heard from others had occurred elsewhere.

"A lot of the people who were selling the project for Dominion, they weren't on board," said Wilson. "They knew."

Union Hill: an increasing recognition of environmental injustice

Nowhere along the pipeline's proposed line became as big a flashpoint as Union Hill, the predominantly African American community in Buckingham County founded by freedpeople after the Civil War. There, Dominion proposed - and the state approved - the construction of a roughly 54,000-horsepower compressor station.

"I think Union Hill is really the linchpin that did it," said Karen Campblin, who as environmental and climate justice chair of the Virginia State Conference of the NAACP was extensively involved in Atlantic Coast opposition. "It was such a blatant environmental justice issue on every level: local, state and federal government, and it was alarming how we had all these government regulations and processes in place, and those even failed."

Union Hill, to many opponents, became the latest example in a long history of siting polluting infrastructure in minority and economically disadvantaged communities, a trend that has been extensively documented across the U.S.

If built, the Union Hill compressor station would have been one of three along the 600-mile line and the only one in the commonwealth. A demographic survey found the population living within 1.1 miles of the chosen site was 84 percent non-White, far above the roughly 31 percent of the statewide population minorities comprise.

Yet Dominion, and Virginia DEQ, refused even to recognize Union Hill as an environmental justice community until January 2020, when during oral arguments before the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond an attorney conceded the validity of the demographic survey's results.

The failure ultimately was one of the major factors that caused the 4th Circuit to yank the compressor station's permit, sternly admonishing DEQ and the Air Pollution Control Board that "environmental justice is not merely a box to be checked" and calling their analysis "flawed."

The conviction that, as Union Hill resident and pipeline opponent Ruby Laury put it, developers "were taking advantage of us as people of color," brought allies flocking to the movement, particularly after civil rights leader Rev. William Barber and former U.S. vice president Al Gore took up the cause in winter 2019 .

"You have like-minded folk who are willing to cross lines, so to speak, with other like-minded folk," said Rev. Wilson of Buckingham. "I'm a traditional missionary Baptist preacher, pastor. Under normal circumstances, I would not have reached out to form a bond with the fine folk of Yogaville. ... And not only Yogaville, but there were other alliances that we made, and we followed through."

The Union Hill struggle also hit at a time when the public was becoming more attuned to and receptive of the idea that minority and poor communities have for years been disproportionately burdened by pollution. At the same time, high-profile police shootings of Black men across the U.S. were increasing racial tensions and heightening public awareness of systemic inequities - currents that have crested this summer following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

"America as a whole is actually waking up and coming out of a state of denial to see that there is a huge inequity toward the Black and Brown communities," said Campblin. And Union Hill, she said, "was part of this whole systemic and discriminatory system that prevented the right education, the right information to be disseminated into these communities, but also to prevent representation at the table where these decisions are being made."

In looking at the failure of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Del. Rasoul warned against seeing the story merely as "a win for environmentalists or a win for the liberal left."

"There is a collective that is frustrated and it is manifesting itself in different ways - protests in the street, grassroots coalitions rising up against these projects," he said. "I think people are finding ways of voicing their frustration. And during this perfect storm of the Black Lives Matter movement and the failure of our response to the COVID crisis, people have had it with certain systems that are not being responsive to their needs."

Renewables: A new pathway to profit

Even many opponents celebrating their victory in the wake of the pipeline cancellation were quick to note, however, that grassroots opposition was only part of the story. Corporate bottom lines were another.

"The reality is that Dominion made a calculation that, especially with the passage of the Clean Economy Act, they could replace many of their profits from natural gas now with $12.5 billion in profits from the Clean Economy Act," said Rasoul.

The Democrat-driven Virginia Clean Economy Act that cleared the General Assembly this winter not only commits the state to transitioning its electric grid to 100 percent carbon free by 2050 but gives broad mandates to utilities, and particularly Dominion, to build out the enormous wind, solar and storage infrastructure that will be needed to meet that goal.

That directive, said Hadwin, offered a way out for Dominion as it moved to divest itself of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline as well as most of its natural gas assets, which it announced it would sell to Berkshire Hathaway in a nearly $10 billion deal Sunday.

"Without that guaranteed income stream, it would have been really hard for them to let go of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline," said Hadwin.

Talking to analysts on an investor call Monday morning, Dominion head Farrell made clear the promise the utility sees for shareholder profits in renewables. In response to a question about how the company plans to offset its lost capital spending opportunities - which come with lucrative returns - with its move away from natural gas, Farrell described renewables and grid protections as "a very large opportunity" for the company's utilities in not only Virginia but North Carolina, South Carolina and other states.

"That's where we will be concentrating our capital investments over the next at least decade," he said. "It's tens and tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars over the next decade."

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What sank the Atlantic Coast Pipeline? It wasn't just environmentalism. - Virginia Mercury

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The news seemed to come out of nowhere. On a hot Sunday afternoon, Union Hill pastor Paul M. Wilson was sitting on his porch eating seafood when he got a call that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the 600-mile natural gas conduit that he and thousands of others in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina had [...]

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How Black & Indigenous Groups Won the Fight to Stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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How Black & Indigenous Groups Won the Fight to Stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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This video focuses on how the Lumbee Tribe were able to stop the continued construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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How Black & Indigenous Groups Won the Fight to Stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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Controversial New Pipelines May Slice Through the Southeast

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Controversial New Pipelines May Slice Through the Southeast

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This article talks about the controversy of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, as it has a huge environmental impact to those that live in areas where the pipeline is being built (the lumbee tribe).

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Like the Keystone XL and Dakota Access before it, a disputed pipeline recently got the green light. Approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ( FERC), which controls the nation's energy markets, the $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline ( ACP) will carve a jagged line from the bedrock of West Virginia to Virginia and into North Carolina if it is built. Unlike Keystone XL and Dakota Access, this new pipeline is slated to transport natural gas instead of oil. But it still presents the potential for devastation to local land-and people.

The pipeline's proponents tout benefits that are mainly economic. The 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas it could transport per day would fuel electrical generation, create jobs, and increase tax revenue for local municipalities, according to the companies behind the ACP. But Amy Mall, senior policy analyst for NRDC's Land & Wildlife program, doesn't buy it. "We share the goal of good jobs and strong economies for local communities, but these pipeline companies are overstating the jobs they will create, and most new jobs exist only during the construction phase. We're advocating that more jobs and a cleaner future would be created if the same amount of money were spent on energy efficiency and renewable energy."

Then there's the issue of necessity. Greg Buppert, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center (which recently requested that FERC withdraw its approval of the ACP), believes the pipeline's central mission of increasing the supply of natural gas is misguided. "This pipeline is intended to run power plants, but the demand for new power plants in West Virginia and North Carolina isn't growing, and at the same time, renewable energy is coming on strong," says Buppert. "This is a long commitment to natural gas, maybe as long as 80 years." And with that questionable commitment come hazards.

Construction Destruction

The geography of the route of the planned pipeline is troubling. The main company behind the plan, Dominion Energy, has proposed building its pipeline through one of the most intact conservation landscapes in the Southeast, which includes large swaths of forest in Virginia and West Virginia. "It will cross the heart of the remaining wild landscape in the eastern United States," says Rick Webb, program coordinator for the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition, a Virginia-based group of environmental scientists, nonprofits, and volunteers. "Pipeline construction on this scale across this type of steep, well-watered, forested mountain landscape is unprecedented. The damage will be extreme and long-lasting."

The most significant impacts will be fragmenting large, unbroken tracts of forestland, such as in the Monongahela and George Washington National Forests, and sullying rivers and streams with construction on some of the steepest terrain in the United States. Building a pipeline involves clearing, grading, and digging using heavy machinery and dynamite blasting. On a large scale, that means national forests, streams, rivers, and mountain ridges will be damaged. Construction could contaminate waterways and thereby threaten surface water or groundwater, both of which supply drinking water to this region. Additionally, construction could trigger erosion and set off landslides on the region's steep limestone slopes. Also at risk are fragile species peppered along the route, including endangered Indiana and northern long-eared bats, Madison cave isopod crustaceans, clubshell mussels, running buffalo clover plants, and other species across the three states where construction would occur.

In fact, one FERC commissioner rejected the approval because of environmental concerns. (She was outvoted by the FERC's other two members at the time.) That same commissioner, Cheryl LaFleur, also opposed approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which has been making its way through the regulatory system in tandem with the ACP (it also recently received FERC approval). That there is a second such pipeline is controversial in and of itself; the two would travel along almost parallel tracks, though they would end up in different places with different customers. Similar to the ACP, the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), also a joint venture of companies, with EQT Midstream Partners at the helm, would transport natural gas from Marcellus and Utica shale wells 300 miles from West Virginia to Virginia.

"There is no documented need for either of these pipelines," says Mall. "FERC doesn't analyze whether a region needs more energy and whether natural gas is the way to feed any demand." In most cases, the companies that invest in a pipeline sell the fuel to a corporate affiliate, utilities in this case. The "need" is not actual market demand, but simply corporate desire for profit.

Environmental Injustice

The land isn't the only thing at risk. ACP's proposed path wends through some of the region's lowest-income communities, primarily comprising African-Americans and indigenous groups. It would travel through eight counties in eastern North Carolina, seven of which have higher poverty levels than the state average. And the overwhelming presence of four indigenous tribes along the route-the Lumbee, Haliwa-Saponi, Meherrin, and Coharie tribes-means they will be disproportionately affected. Approximately 30,000 indigenous people will be negatively impacted by the project, according to Ryan Emanuel, an associate professor at North Carolina State University and member of the Lumbee tribe.

Emanuel points to data in the project's draft environmental impact statement (EIS) showing that 25 percent of all indigenous people in North Carolina live within one mile of the proposed pipeline. Despite this proximity, the EIS concludes that the "environmental justice populations would not be disproportionately affected by the projects." Emanuel scoffs at this notion-especially in light of the sacred burial grounds in the region. It was only within the past 100 years that the Lumbee began burying their relatives in cemeteries; ancestors of many of the area's tribes are scattered across their land. And he wonders how the pipeline's excavation crews will handle any remains that are uncovered.

"One of the tragic things about native peoples in the United States is that this continues to happen over and over again-that we are invisible and ignored when it comes to making important decisions about our ability to persist into the future as distinct native peoples," says Emanuel. "Today it's about the environment; prior to this it was about racism and education. Change the topic, but the theme of being ignored about important decisions persists."

FERC's recent approval of the ACP pipeline means that the developers have the authority to build through native soil as well as public and national lands. Developers can even claim private property via eminent domain where necessary. Construction of the ACP and MVP are slated to begin by the end of 2018, if all necessary permits in Virginia and North Carolina are granted.

The pipeline developers maintain that the ACP and MVP are absolutely necessary. But Mall disagrees: "There's no documented demand for more natural gas. Any of the states where this gas is destined, including Dominion customers in Virginia, can meet demand with energy efficiency and renewable energy."

Once again, we need to decide on the type of future we're forging. Perhaps it's time to choose the one that's best for people and nature-particularly those most vulnerable.

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Controversial New Pipelines May Slice Through the Southeast

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Like the Keystone XL and Dakota Access before it, a disputed pipeline recently got the green light. Approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ( FERC), which controls the nation's energy markets, the $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline ( ACP) will carve a jagged line from the bedrock of West Virginia to Virginia and into North Carolina if it is built.

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Appeal of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval of ACP

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Appeal of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval of ACP

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This document is the Appeal of the FERC's approval of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. It was filed by the members of the Lumbee Tribe to fight against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Virginia and North Carolina

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Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Virginia and North Carolina

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This news article gives general information about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, giving details about the route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. It doesn't highlight the effect of the pipeline on the Lumbee Tribe.

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Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a proposed 564.1-mile (907.8km) long, interstate natural gas transmission pipeline system that will fulfil the growing energy needs in Virginia (VA) and North Carolina, US.

The project will be developed, owned and operated by Atlantic Coast Pipeline (Atlantic), a joint venture of four American energy companies, Dominion Resources (45%), Duke Energy Corporation (40%), Piedmont Natural Gas (10%) and AGL Resources (5%).

The pipeline will have a capacity of 1.5 million metric dekatherms a day (1.5 billion cubic feet a day) of natural gas and is estimated to cost between $4.5bn and $5bn.

An application for the project was submitted to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or Commission) on 18 September 2015. The FERC approved the certificate of public convenience and necessity for the project in October 2017.

Running through the regions of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, the pipeline will enhance the local economy and also provide natural gas to generate electricity, heat homes and run local businesses by supplying these areas with Marcellus shale gas from West Virginia.

Dominion Transmission was contracted to oversee the construction and operation of the project on behalf of the Atlantic JV.

Construction on the project is expected to be completed between 2017 and 2019, while operations are expected to begin by the end of 2019.

Route details of Atlantic Coast pipeline

"Construction on the project is expected to be completed between 2017 and 2019, while operations are expected to begin by the end of 2019."

Beginning at Harrison County in West Virginia, the pipeline will run southeast through Virginia and extend to Chesapeake, VA, and further south through North Carolina to Robeson County.

An absence of existing pipeline infrastructure in West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina prompted the proposed pipeline to be developed along a new corridor.

Approximately 497.4 miles (88%) of the pipeline will be built in a greenfield corridor, whereas the remaining 66.2 miles (12%) will run parallel to available linear corridor facilities that include pipelines, electric transmission lines, roads, railroads and a former surface strip mine.

The route changes were submitted to FERC to avoid environmental impacts in October 2015. The adjustments include Cheat Mountain route variation, Cow Knob route variation, the Warminster/Swift Island route variation, and the Great Dismal Swamp Major route alternative.

Details of Atlantic Coast pipeline

The project will consist of two new mainlines, namely AP-1 and AP-2, three new lateral pipelines AP-3, AP-4 and AP-5, three compressor stations, nine metering and regulating stations, 30 valves, eight sets of pig launcher and receiver assemblies, and associated appurtenances.

A 42in-diameter pipeline will be built in West Virginia and Virginia, a 36in-diameter pipeline will be constructed in North Carolina and a 20in-diameter pipeline will be in the extension to Hampton Roads.

The pipeline will have a maximum allowable operating pressure of 1,440lb per square inch gauge (psig). Taps will be fitted on the pipeline to provide access to larger customers.

Compressor stations along Atlantic Coast pipeline

The Rover Pipeline Project is a proposed interstate natural gas pipeline system that will transport natural gas to US and Canada from processing facilities located in the Marcellus and Utica shale areas.

Compressor station one, to be built in Lewis County, West Virginia, will supply natural gas from the proposed Kincheloe metering and regulating station to the mainline AP-1.

Comprising four gas driven turbines, the station will give a combined 55,015 horsepower (hp) of compression.

Compressor station two will be constructed in Buckingham County, Virginia, at the intersection of mainline AP-1 with Transco transmission pipelines.

The station will be bi-directional and will receive natural gas from both mainline AP-1 and existing Transco pipelines. It will also be able to discharge natural gas downstream into the mainline AP-1 and Transco pipelines. With four gas driven turbines, the station will provide 40,715hp of compression.

Compressor station three to be built in Northampton County, North Carolina, will be located at the intersection of the two mainlines and the lateral line one. It will supply natural gas from mainline AP-1 to mainline AP-2 and lateral AP-3. Consisting of three gas-driven compressors, the station will provide 21,815hp of compression.

Feed gas supply to the interstate natural gas pipeline

The proposed pipeline will receive natural gas from two new interconnections. One of them will be the Marts Junction Interconnection that will be established in Harrison County, West Virginia, between the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Dominion transmission facilities.

The second interconnection will be the Buckingham Interconnect that will be located in Buckingham County, Virginia, between the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and existing Transco facilities.

Sale of gas from the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Subsidiaries and affiliates of the four partners in the JV will be customers of the pipeline, while PSNC Energy has also signed a 20-year contract to off-take the gas.

Contractors involved

Dura-Bond was selected through a bidding process to provide steel pipes for the project in an agreement worth more than $400m. Pipes manufacturing commenced at Dura-Bond's Steelton mill in late 2015.

Spring Ridge Constructors (SRC), a joint venture comprising Price Gregory International, Quanta Services, US Pipeline, SMPC, and Rockford Corporation, was awarded the lead construction contract in September 2016.

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Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Virginia and North Carolina

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Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a proposed 564.1-mile (907.8km) long, interstate natural gas transmission pipeline system that will fulfil the growing energy needs in Virginia (VA) and North Carolina, US. The project will be developed, owned and operated by Atlantic Coast Pipeline (Atlantic), a joint venture of four American energy companies, Dominion Resources (45%), Duke Energy Corporation (40%), Piedmont Natural Gas (10%) and AGL Resources (5%).

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Atlantic Coast Pipeline Faces Native American Resistance

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Atlantic Coast Pipeline Faces Native American Resistance

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News article focusing on the resistance that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline received from the Lumbee Tribe

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Two American Indian tribes in North Carolina are among the groups seeking to join a court challenge to federal regulators' decision to approve the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a $5 billion project proposed by utility giants Dominion and Duke Energy. The 600-mile pipeline would carry fracked gas from West Virginia through Virginia to eastern North Carolina, which is home to many Native Americans.

On Feb. 23, the state-recognized Haliwa-Saponi and Lumbee tribes along with 17 public-interest groups led by climate watchdog NC WARN formally asked to join an appeal of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) approval of the pipeline issued last fall. The appeal was originally filed in January with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates on behalf of 11 conservation nonprofits.

The tribes' move came one day after the Lumbee Tribal Council held an emergency meeting where it unanimously passed a resolution calling on FERC to formally consult with it about the pipeline's impacts.

"North Carolina tribes have been left out of the Environmental Impact Study," said Jan Lowery, chair of the Lumbee Tribe's Health Committee. "The study did not include the concerns of tribes, and the goal is to get a structured consultation."

Click for a larger version. Both maps by the State of North Carolina.

The Lumbees' resolution noted the tribe's concerns about how the pipeline could affect unmarked ancestral burial grounds, sacred places, and the environment. It also pointed out that the National Congress of American Indians - the oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaskan Native tribal governments - passed a resolution calling on all regulatory agencies to engage in meaningful consultation with the Indian tribal nations that would be affected by the proposed pipeline's construction and operation.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would pass through the territories of four tribes in North Carolina. In addition to the Lumbee and Haliwa-Saponi, Coharie and Meherrin communities would also be affected. In a letter that appeared last year in Science magazine, N.C. State University professor Ryan Emanuel documented the flaws in FERC's environmental justice analysis that obscured the disproportionate impact the project would have on Native Americans:

The nearly 30,000 Native Americans who live within [1 mile] of the proposed pipeline make up 13.2% of the impacted population in North Carolina, where only 1.2% of the people is Native American. Yet, the [draft environmental impact statement] reported that fewer than half of the areas along the proposed route had minority populations higher than county-level baseline proportions. The discrepancy stems from the DEIS's failure to account for large differences in population size in the studied areas; large minority populations in some places were masked by much smaller nonminority populations elsewhere. The analysis also failed to account for large differences in baseline demographics among counties, where minority populations range from less than 1% to nearly 70%. These large differences prevented meaningful comparisons among areas in different counties. Together, these flaws rendered FERC's analysis incapable of detecting large Native American populations along the route, leading to false conclusions about the project's impacts.

'We want to be heard'

Similar concerns that FERC's environmental assessment ignored Native Americans were raised in recent years over the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners that carries crude shale oil from North Dakota to Illinois, and sparked mass protests near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. While the Obama administration halted construction in order to prepare a more comprehensive environmental assessment, the Trump administration reversed that decision. The pipeline began operating commercially last June.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline opponents are shifting their focus back to the federal government following North Carolina's January decision to grant a water quality permit to the project. That decision is mired in controversy because a $58 million mitigation fund financed by the pipeline's developers was announced the same day the permit was granted. Republicans state lawmakers and some pipeline opponents have accused Gov. Roy Cooper (D) - who recently hired as his legislative director a former lobbyist for Dominion and the American Petroleum Institute - of engaging in quid-pro-quo politics with the fund's creation.

Many of the groups seeking to join the lawsuit at the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals are part of an alliance that filed a rehearing request with FERC following the agency's October approval of the project. The request said FERC made a mockery of the legal process by allowing Dominion and Duke to supplement their application numerous times after the comment period ended, leaving the public with no avenue to respond to the companies' claims.

In addition, the groups' request charged FERC with cutting corners on assessing the need for the pipeline, its cumulative health impacts, and environmental justice implications. The pipeline will also have a disproportionate effect on African-American communities in eastern North Carolina, as was documented in a 2017 report by the NAACP and Clean Air Task Force.

Furthermore, the request pointed to FERC's failure to consider the pipeline's climate effects. Pipelines are a major source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas pollutant. The agency's neglect to consider the climate when evaluating pipeline proposals is in the spotlight following a federal court's ruling last year that has put construction of the Sabal Trail Pipeline in Florida - another project involving Duke Energy - in question.

But rather than grant or deny the request for a rehearing within the allotted 30 days, FERC issued what's known as a "tolling order," which allows it to delay the decision indefinitely while construction is allowed to proceed.

"FERC has this habit of just delaying stuff," said John Runkle, an attorney for NC WARN who filed the rehearing request as well as the motion to intervene in the federal lawsuit. "We want to make sure we will be heard."

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Atlantic Coast Pipeline faces Native American resistance

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Two American Indian tribes in North Carolina are seeking to join a legal challenge to federal regulators' approval of the project, arguing that the environmental assessment excluded them. The fracked gas pipeline proposed by Dominion and Duke Energy would disproportionately affect tribal lands in the eastern part of the state.

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This article gives general background on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline - when it started being built and what year the pipeline will be finished

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The Atlantic Coast Pipeline proves that advocacy can overcome the odds when we work together.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline was a multi-billion dollar project supported by powerful backers. For years, a broad and diverse coalition of advocates and organizations worked tirelessly to highlight the project's many flaws, working through regulatory boards, the courts, and in protests. CBF was one of many who fought the battle, which also included tree sitters, rural landowners, endangered species experts, local residents monitoring construction and water quality, environmental justice advocates, scientists, and lawyers. Finally, after six years into the project, the developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline announced its cancellation in July 2020.

About the Pipeline

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline was an extensive interstate natural gas pipeline complex proposed by Dominion Energy, Duke Energy Corporation, Piedmont Natural Gas Co., Inc., and Southern Company Gas. As proposed by its owners, it would have consisted of two main pipeline facilities, three pipeline laterals, three new compressor stations and other infrastructure capable of delivering up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to customers in Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia.

The proposed pipeline would have spanned more than 600 miles through Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. It threatened the environment and vulnerable communities, as well as water quality throughout the Commonwealth and the Chesapeake Bay ( see map of the proposed route below). The planned route crossed Virginia waterways more than a thousand times. Massive trenching and in-stream blasting at these stream crossings many within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, would have increased sediment and nutrient pollution in local streams and the Bay.

Its expected destruction of forests and disturbance of other sensitive lands would have diminished the ability of these vital regions to filter water, clean the air, and provide other essential environmental services. Traversing rugged and steep mountain terrain, concerns were raised about landslides and streams smothered with soil after runoff from heavy rains-as happened with construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in 2018.

People along the route contended with their land being taken for construction and risks to their health and well-being from the proposed pipeline--from a couple's old growth 'Garden of Eden' on Miracle Ridge to the historically African-American community of Union Hill.

That rural community would have hosted the Buckingham Compressor Station, designed to push gas through the pipeline. But the facility raised serious environmental justice issues as it would have jeopardized the health of the many nearby residents who live less than a mile from the site. Emissions from the compressor station would also have added a new source of pollution to waterways and contributed to climate change. In a landmark environmental justice victory, CBF and partners successfully challenged the air permit for the facility in federal court.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline Proposed Route

Zoom in to view forest loss and access roads

CBF's Fight for Clean Water and Environmental Justice

Construction of new interstate pipelines is regulated by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). As part of its review process, FERC prepares an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act as well as Virginia law, DEQ must certify that the proposed project will comply with state water quality standards. CBF submitted comments to FERC on several issues throughout the process. Our 2017 analysis of the Draft EIS demonstrated that it failed adequately to address the proposed project's significant threats to wetlands, concerns about water quality impacts from sedimentation, and anticipated NOx emissions from the pipeline compressor stations which will ultimately deposit nitrogen to waterways.

CBF and 75 other conservation and advocacy groups signed on to a letter to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and DEQ urging the Commonwealth to conduct an appropriate 401 certification analysis. This Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) press release included a statement from CBF.

Throughout the following two-and-a-half-years, CBF, SELC, and other conservation groups and organizations submitted comments, sent letters, filed petitions and appeals. In August 2018 CBF joined a legal challenge to FERC's approval of the pipeline. The following February, CBF, together with SELC and Friends of Buckingham, filed a lawsuit challenging Air Board approval of the Buckingham Compressor Station. In a landmark environmental justice decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the Virginia air permit for the proposed Buckingham Compressor Station in Union Hill.

The fight experienced a major setback in June 2020, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in favor of the developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline regarding the project's planned crossing beneath the Appalachian Trail. In July 2020, CBF, together with SELC, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and a host of other partners, opposed the pipeline developers' request to FERC for two additional years to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Finally, on July 5, 2020, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy announce the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Project.

CBF's Anti-Pipeline Advocacy: A Timeline

October 2017: Five conservation groups, including CBF, send a letter to the Virginia State Water Control Board urging it to exercise its authority and refuse certification of the pipeline.

November 2017: CBF, SELC, and 19 other organizations and individuals file a petition with FERC asking it to reconsider approval of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

December 2017: CBF speaks at Virginia's State Water Control Board hearing asking the board to reject water quality certification. The Board nonetheless votes to approve water quality certification for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but to delay its effective date until plans for addressing threats from stormwater pollution, erosion, and sediment control are reviewed and approved by the Department of Environmental Quality.

January 2018: CBF files an appeal of the Virginia State Water Control Board's water quality certification for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

March 2018: After Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) construction began in Virginia over the winter with cutting thousands of trees, on March 16 DEQ issues a notice of violation for illegal work along streams and wetlands. ACP asks FERC for permission to extend its tree cutting work by two months, until May 15, jeopardizing sensitive bird species. CBF files comments with FERC opposing that extension and on March 28 FERC denied the extension.

April 2018: In a positive step, the Virginia State Water Control Board votes to reopen a public comment period on water quality certification for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. DEQ subsequently announces a public comment period that ran from April 30 to May 30.

June 2018: CBF submits comments to the State Water Control Board urging the Board to withdraw the water quality certification for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

August 2018: CBF joins a legal challenge to FERC's approval of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center.

August 2018: CBF speaks at a Water Control Board Meeting, asking the board to revoke the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's water quality certification. Unfortunately,the Board approves certification that CBF believes is inadequate to protect waterways from pollution.

September 2018: CBF submits comments to the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board opposing the draft permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's proposed natural gas compressor station in Buckingham County, Virginia.

September 2018: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond hears oral arguments in a challenge to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's water quality certification by CBF and other conservation organizations.

November 2018: The Wilmington, North Carolina, district of the Army Corps of Engineers suspended its issuance of a nationwide general permit to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline for construction. The decision was in response to a ruling in the Fourth Circuit (a different case than the one above) casting doubt on the validity of the permit in West Virginia. Recognizing that the pipeline is part of a project that runs from West Virginia through Virginia to North Carolina, the Corps suspended the permit for the entire length of the pipeline.

December 2018: The Virginia Air Pollution Control Board postponed a decision on the permit for the Buckingham Compressor Station in order to take additional public comment.

January 2019: The Virginia Air Pollution Control Board approved the permit for the Buckingham Compressor Station by a 4-0 vote.

February 2019: CBF, together with SELC and Friends of Buckingham, files a lawsuit challenging Air Board approval of the Buckingham Compressor Station in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

October 2019: CBF argues the environmental justice concerns around the Buckingham Compressor Station in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

January 2020: In a landmark environmental justice decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacates the Virginia air permit for the proposed Buckingham Compressor Station in Union Hill. This comes after a legal challenge filed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) with Southern Environmental Law Center and Friends of Buckingham.

June 2020: The U.S. Supreme Court issues a decision in favor of the developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline regarding the project's planned crossing beneath the Appalachian Trail.

July 2020: CBF, together with SELC, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and a host of other partners, opposed the pipeline developers' request to FERC for two additional years to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

July 2020: Dominion Energy and Duke Energy announce they are cancelling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Project.

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The Atlantic Coast Pipeline proves that advocacy can overcome the odds when we work together. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline was a multi-billion dollar project supported by powerful backers. For years, a broad and diverse coalition of advocates and organizations worked tirelessly to highlight the project's many flaws, working through regulatory boards, the courts, and in protests.

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This article gives more context about where the Atlantic Coast Pipeline will be built and where (map wise) it overlaps with the Lumbee River and the Lumbee Tribe territory.

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The pink ribbons start in northern West Virginia. Tied to flimsy wooden posts stuck a few inches into the earth, they're easy to miss as they whip in the crisp, fall wind. Heading south, they dot landscapes for 600 miles, marking the proposed route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. They pass over cave systems and watersheds, climb up and down densely forested Appalachian slopes. They stamp quiet hollers and hillside family cemeteries. They divide historic African American communities and indigenous land.

The route stretches from the Marcellus Shale region of West Virginia, through Virginia, to southern North Carolina - though the energy companies behind the pipeline have floated the idea of extending it into South Carolina. If completed, the hundreds of miles of 42- and 36-inch diameter steel would carry 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day - enough to power 5 million homes daily. Three compressor stations along the route would help transport the gas, and, like much of the pipeline, would be built in lower-income, rural communities, bypassing more affluent property owners.

The project is part of a pipeline boom in the United States prompted by the fossil fuel industry's shift from a fuel source on the decline, coal, to one on the rise, natural gas. Dominion Energy owns the majority share of the project, which was first proposed in 2014. Some of the most powerful utilities in the Southern U.S. - Duke Energy and Southern Company - own the rest. Those utility companies are also the wholesalers that would profit by reselling the gas to their ratepayers. The companies say the project is necessary because they and other utilities serving Virginia and North Carolina need cheaper gas. And they claim it would be an economic boon to the region, estimating that it would provide 17,000 construction jobs and generate $28 million each year total in property taxes for the 25 counties and two cities it will pass through.

But economists, environmentalists, researchers, and many residents in the places the pipeline would pass through say the project's risks and costs outweigh its potential short-term benefits.

The promise of employment, for example, doesn't shake out: Most of the pipeline's construction jobs are highly specialized, so many of the workers have come from out of state. Dominion spokesperson Samantha Norris said that once the pipeline is operational, "a few dozen inspectors and technicians" will be employed to maintain it.

Further, the utility companies seem to be overstating regional demand: In Dominion's most recent long-term energy plan, most scenarios showed no increase in regional consumption through 2033. Instead, the U.S. is expected to be a leading exporter of natural gas within five years. Some opponents suspect that much of the gas carried by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would be shipped overseas.

Meanwhile, the project's environmental threats are stacking up. Scientists warned during its environmental impact assessment that the mountainous terrain the pipeline would run through is unstable in spots. Where construction has begun, there have already been problems with erosion and sedimentation. There are also risks of natural gas leaks and explosions that could endanger nearby communities and contaminate drinking water supplies and wildlife habitats. And the concern over emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane from natural gas extraction is only growing as global temperatures rise and countries and states work to address climate change.

For years, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline has faced intense scrutiny for receiving expedited approvals from government officials without sufficient oversight. In 2017, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC, approved the overall project. The Department of Transportation oversees safety regulations on how interstate pipelines are constructed, tested, and inspected once they're in the ground, said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a Washington-based organization that advocates for pipeline safety regulations. But populated areas receive the lion's share of the regulations. Federal rules are more lax in rural areas, he said - and all of the areas the pipeline would pass through are considered rural.

"It's cheaper to build in rural areas - they don't have to worry about added regulations when they do that," Weimer said. "But if there's a pipe next to your house that blows up, you're gonna be just as dead as someone in a populated area."

Originally scheduled to be in service this year, the project is tangled up in legal battles, and construction is less than 6 percent complete, in terms of miles of pipe in the ground. Despite the setbacks, Dominion remains confident that the pipeline will be up and running by late 2021. According to Norris, the Dominion spokesperson, developers have "extensively surveyed the route of the pipeline to identify and avoid the most sensitive areas and have made over 300 adjustments to avoid public and private water supplies, streams and rivers, wetlands, forested areas, historically or culturally sensitive sites, as well as individual landowner requests." She said that in light of the 150,000 pages of environmental reports and 75,000 public comments generated throughout the process, the pipeline had the "most thorough and rigorous review of any project in our region's history."

"In the end, all agencies reached the same conclusion," Norris said. "This is in the public's best interest."

The courts, however, are calling that conclusion into question. Over the past three years, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC, has sued landowners in multiple states citing eminent domain, a body of law that governments - and, increasingly, energy companies - use to seize private property that they claim is for public benefit. These cases are still pending but lower courts have stalled the process.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, or SELC, has challenged multiple permits for the project since the beginning - and won. The most important victory came in December 2018, when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the U.S. Forest Service violated federal law when it approved the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail, managed by the National Park Service, as well as Forest Service land. The ruling canceled the permit and halted construction.

Earlier this year, Dominion appealed the ruling on the Appalachian Trail crossing to the Supreme Court. In October, the Supreme Court decided to take Dominion's case, and will hear oral arguments in February.

"The Forest Service has never done this before. There is no existing pipeline that crosses national forest land under this statute," said D.J. Gerken, SELC's program director. "If they affirm [the lower court's ruling], there are big consequences for this pipeline, like being rerouted at the very least."

After the Supreme Court issues its ruling, the D.C. circuit court will hear SELC's challenge to FERC's 2017 approval of the pipeline.

Over the past year, I've followed the path of the ribbons from West Virginia to North Carolina. I hiked along steep ridges where they were tied to trees; trudged through muddy cattle farms where they were stuck on fence posts. I drove past them as the route curved around churches and homes.

Along the way, I spoke to more than 20 people who lived on or near the proposed route, in addition to scientists, activists, lawyers, and government officials. In some places, I learned that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline has pitted neighbor against neighbor and sibling against sibling, that it has split church communities and broken friendships. In others, I found that it inspired folks to speak out at county meetings, to read every line in an environmental assessment, and to organize protests with strangers who became close friends.

Here are a few stories about some of the humans, wildlife, and places in the pipeline's path.

For more than a century, Appalachia has relied on the coal industry, which brought well-paying jobs but left degraded ecosystems and communities in its wake. The coal industry's sharp decline over the past decade, driven by cheaper natural gas and renewables, has left many central Appalachian counties with some of the highest rates of unemployment and poverty in the country.

"Historically, natural resource extraction has suffered an economic boom-bust cycle," said Patrick McGinley, an environmental law professor at West Virginia University. "Local communities benefit to some degree, but they also suffer."

[parallax-image id="436721″ class="fullWidth"]

Activists, former miners, and community leaders have long worked to diversify the region's economy through agriculture, outdoor recreation, renewable energy, and the arts. But the fossil fuel industry has its own plan: natural gas, the most recent iteration of this extractive economy pitched to local officials and communities as an economic silver bullet.

Upshur County sits in the Marcellus Shale region of West Virginia, where eight major pipeline projects are in some stage of construction. Formerly a heavy coal-producing county with just over 24,000 residents, Upshur has a poverty rate of roughly 23 percent - nearly double the national rate. In an effort to attract more industry, county officials endorsed 22 miles of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in 2017 to run through Upshur in exchange for a promised $2 million in tax revenue per year and hundreds of new jobs. Similar deals occurred all the way down the route, mostly in areas with high poverty rates; ultimately, Dominion and Duke garnered support from most counties along the route.

On a November morning last year, with the gray sky spilling a mix of sleet and snow, Kevin Campbell, a gruff 65-year-old retired oil-and-gas industry worker who wears thick glasses, met me in Buckhannon, the county seat, to give me a tour of the pipeline route.

He stopped his van - emblazoned with a giant photo of his face, since he used it during his run for city council - on Brushy Fork Road, next to a pipeline staging area. Campbell showed me where hundreds of 42-inch-wide steel pipes coated in turquoise enamel were stacked in a dirt lot, well before the pipeline was approved by FERC, and left exposed to the elements for nearly four years. (The pipes have since been removed and used for pipeline construction.) The chemical coating that protects the pipe from corrosion is toxic, with the potential to cause birth defects, gastrointestinal issues, and cancer. According to its manufacturer, chemical giant 3M, the coating shouldn't be kept in direct sunlight for a prolonged period because it has "poor ultraviolet (UV) light resistance."

It might not work well underground either. Documents obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center show that earlier this year, pipeline developers had to dig up 10 miles of pipe in northern West Virginia because they failed a corrosion test. In July, federal regulators asked developers for more information about the coating after opponents raised concerns about its impacts on air and water.

As he surveyed the lot, Campbell let out a heavy sigh. "We don't know what it's doing to the air or the ground," he said.

After moving to West Virginia from Florida, Campbell worked for the oil and gas industry on fracking projects, driving millions of dollars' worth of equipment and chemicals from one site to the next. At some sites, the process was messy, dangerous, and often destroyed the surrounding environment, he said. Cleanup "was somebody's else's problem."

When, in 2014, nearly 10,000 gallons of a chemical used to process coal spilled into the Elk River in Charleston, a major source of drinking water for the area, Campbell started volunteering more with local environmental groups, including the local chapter of the Sierra Club and West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

Campbell was concerned when he heard about how close the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would be to drinking water sources, homes, and a local high school. Working with local organizations, he spent hours each week flying drones, talking to pipeline workers about problems, and taking pictures to monitor construction. He helped provide evidence to West Virginia regulators when they issued their first violation for sediment pollution.

An investigation by ProPublica and the Charleston Gazette-Mail last year showed that West Virginia and federal agencies expedited the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, as well as the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, slated to run 303 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. (Federal regulators stopped construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which is mostly complete, in October because of unresolved legal challenges.) And while there have been small economic gains for local restaurants and businesses, most experts say it's not enough to move the needle. The tax revenue wouldn't provide extensive economic relief, and more experienced welders and industry workers on the construction crews hail from outside the state.

"Despite the promises and opportunities that industry emphasizes, at the end of the day, what's going to be left are the same concerns: Has surface and groundwater been contaminated? Are the businesses like convenience stores, motels, and pipeline businesses that were created during the boom going to shut down?" said McGinley, the law professor. "I'd say probably, because the majority of investment is on the front end, on development. It's a short-term profit."

Last November, I stood in the middle of a two-lane state highway near Clover Creek, one of West Virginia's beloved trout streams. On one side of a mountain, sections of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline snaked down through a steep, muddy trench. Workers prepared equipment along the shoulder of the road and sections of pipeline were lined up, ready to cross it and writhe up the next hill.

Beneath the steep grades and rounded peaks of the Appalachian Mountains, formed 300 to 500 million years ago, a network of underground tributaries flows through the limestone bedrock, dissolving it over time and creating a lattice of voids that resembles swiss cheese - a topography called karst. Some of these caves are as narrow as a pencil; one of the largest in West Virginia hosts an underground waterfall that's more than 140 feet high.

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Pocahontas County, on West Virginia's border with Virginia, is full of these waterways. The water that flows rapidly through them emerges cold and clean at springs and streams, creating the perfect home for brook trout, a colorful, spotted fish prized by anglers. The fish seek shelter behind boulders and beneath undercut banks, darting out to feed on insects and other invertebrates above and below the surface. In the fall, they spawn and lay their eggs along pebbly stream bottoms.

Some of the most important waterways for brook trout reproduction are in Pocahontas County, which sits at a high elevation and is less industrially developed than other parts of West Virginia. This county, where Clover Creek flows, is often called the "birthplace of rivers," since it is home to the headwaters of eight rivers. There are 54,000 miles of rivers and streams in the state, said Nicolas Zegre, associate professor of forest hydrology and director of the Mountain Hydrology Laboratory at Davis College at West Virginia University. But 86 percent of that mileage is headwater streams that are no longer protected under federal law, since the EPA repealed the Waters of the United States rule earlier this year.

"Whatever happens high in headwaters will inevitably impact downstream, where water matters to society," he said. "What happens in West Virginia has implications all the way down the Potomac River and the Mississippi River."

Brook trout are like canaries in the coal mine for water quality. Sand and silt from upstream erosion can smother their habitat, reducing both their food sources and reproductive success. When water quality and habitat is degraded, the fish disappear. "This part of central Appalachia really is one of the best strongholds of native brook trout in the region," said Jacob Lemon, eastern angler science coordinator for Trout Unlimited, which works to protect, conserve and restore North America's coldwater fisheries and their watersheds. In West Virginia, trout populations are fragmented because development has relegated them to small headwater streams. Without access to larger rivers, brook trout are "more sensitive to localized impacts," Lemon said.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline's proposed route crosses 40 wild trout streams. Puncturing the wrong piece of earth in this fragile ecosystem, whether by digging for a well, installing infrastructure, or building a home, can cause more subsidence, sinkholes, and rapid movement of contaminants or sedimentation.

If West Virginia's streams were to become contaminated or degraded enough to damage brook trout populations, it wouldn't only be an environmental disaster; it could also devastate a small but steady industry in the state. In 2017, sales of trout fishing licenses raised nearly $1 million for the state, and the angling economy enables gas stations, restaurants, lodges, and other businesses to flourish during the fishing season.

"Given the importance of biodiversity and the complexity of the landscape and stream networks," Zegre said, "this is one of the worst places to do this project if we think about the system as a whole and not just inexpensive energy moving across the state."

In 2015, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's developers had to reroute the project away from two Virginia counties to avoid crossing National Park Service land. The next year they had to reroute it again, around the Shenandoah Valley, because the path crossed the habitat of the endangered cow knob salamander.

Jeannette and Gary Robinson watched the story unfold for months, nervous about what the rerouting might mean for their community in Little Valley, just outside Shenandoah. Little Valley, in Bath County, is a narrow hollow with a cool creek running down the center. Many of the families live on land passed down for generations.

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Not long after the decision to reroute the pipeline on account of the salamander, Jeannette sat in her driveway in disbelief, staring at a letter from Dominion saying that her land was about to be surveyed for a potential new route. The Robinsons' farm, which has been in Jeannette's family since 1792, is at the head of Little Valley, a quiet, lush corner of Appalachia. While there are no endangered salamanders here, there are plenty of other flora and fauna that scientists and residents are concerned about: native brook trout and an old-growth forest that's home to a massive 500-year-old maple, as well as spring systems that Virginia officials are worried the pipeline could disrupt.

It's also the habitat of a tiny organism that has helped stall the project: the rusty patched bumblebee, which in 2017 became the first bee in the continental U.S. to be placed on the endangered species list.

At dusk on a cold night last fall, hours before an ice storm passed through, Gary took me on a walk around their farm. Pausing in a brambly meadow just up the hill from the white farmhouse where Jeannette grew up, he motioned to a thick patch of native grasses. "This is where they found one of the bumblebees," he said proudly.

In 2017, a Dominion surveyor reported a rusty patched bumblebee in the area while working on the environmental impact statement. Virginia state scientists found a group of them on the Robinsons' farm about a year later, and Gary found another the next day. The rusty patched bumblebee primarily lives in the Midwest and in Virginia, and its population has declined by 87 percent since the 1990s. Little is known about it, said Chris Ludwig, the recently retired chief biologist at the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, but it's now one of the state's top conservation priorities.

"It's a very rare bee and may be a bellwether for other insects that are rapidly declining," Ludwig said.

Dominion Energy served the Robinsons with papers in May saying it was going to take their land through eminent domain to build an access road. The proposed pipeline route crosses through Little Valley and up a nearby mountain, with about half a mile of the planned road running along a narrow ridgeline on the Robinsons' land. Their court dates are scheduled for next year.

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Fortunately for the Robinsons, that same month, environmental lawyers argued that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit should be vacated because the rusty-patched bumblebee and three other endangered species - the clubshell mussel, the Indiana bat, and the Madison Cave isopod - were not taken into consideration when the biological opinion was written for the environmental impact statement. In July, a three-judge panel in the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revoked the permit, and one wrote in his opinion that the agency had "lost sight of its mandate" under the Endangered Species Act.

"Appalachia is one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the country, and the people who live here in Little Valley, like Jeannette's family, have lived so lightly on the land over the centuries that it is still able to support animals like the rusty patched bumblebee," Gary said over tea in their living room. "That whole heritage has passed down to us, and you know, we're trying to protect it."

Belinda Joyner wasn't necessarily surprised when she heard Dominion and Duke Energy wanted to build a compressor station just a few miles from her home in Garysburg in Northampton County, a marshy farming area of eastern North Carolina.

People living in this part of the state have fought off scads of projects posing environmental and public health risks for decades. In the 1980s, a black community protested an attempt to put a PCB landfill in their neighborhood in Warren County, just west of Northampton. The toxic waste was eventually dumped there, but the protests ignited the environmental justice movement. Still, that didn't stop a variety of other industries from taking root in the region: Northampton County is overrun by concentrated hog farming and is also home to an Enviva wood pellet plant that turns timber from Southern forests into wood pellets to export for Europe's biomass industry.

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Many years ago, Joyner started the Concerned Citizens of Northampton County, going door-to-door to gather members to attend economic development meetings and make calls to environmental groups and lawmakers. "I told people, 'This is your community, this is your home,'" she said. "Speak from your heart." Just last year the group successfully organized to stop a coal ash landfill from coming to the county.

But the pipeline has proven harder to defeat.

Parts of Garysburg are in designated "high consequence areas" for the pipeline, where the extent of damage to property or the chance of serious injury or death are significant. Joyner and others are primarily concerned with a proposed compressor station, which is designed to keep natural gas flowing through the pipeline. These facilities are loosely regulated, experts say, and can endanger the communities around them. For starters, the constant vibrations and noise can be a nuisance; worse are the gases they emit, including formaldehyde and methane - a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a problem, too. The compressors burn natural gas to run, so exhaust is constantly blowing out of their stacks. There is also a risk of explosions: In 2015, a compressor station in Louisiana blew up, killing four workers, causing tens of millions of dollars in damage, forcing a rural neighborhood to evacuate, and shutting down a highway.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would have three compressor stations along its 600-mile route, including the one in Northampton. The 2017 environmental impact statement for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline states that there would be no significant adverse socioeconomic impact from compressor stations. "While they would be permanent facilities, air emissions would not exceed regulatory permittable levels," the report reads. "As a result, no disproportionately high and adverse impacts on environmental justice populations as a result of air quality impacts ... would be expected."

But two of the stations are being built in predominantly black communities. In addition to the Northampton station, another compressor station is proposed for Union Hill, Virginia, an area settled by freed slaves after the Civil War that has in many ways become one of the epicenters of the fight against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Residents, environmental groups, and social justice groups are contesting an air pollution permit granted by Virginia regulators after Governor Ralph Northam removed two regulators from the board who were leaning against it. Opponents say federal regulators need to conduct a review assessing the compressor station's potential public health impact on the surrounding community or stop the pipeline.

Low-income and minority communities, like Northampton County, often play host to environmental hazards. An Environmental Protection Agency research team found last year that black people are more likely than any other ethnic group to be exposed to fine particulate air pollution from industrial facilities. Jennifer Richmond-Bryant, a former EPA scientist who was part of the team and now teaches in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, said the data is consistent with decades of research that shows hazardous waste facilities and emissions sources are often built near marginalized communities. "Our work follows on that body of evidence," she said. "Political capital and marginalization are likely to be what drive disparities in burden."

The Northampton County residents' fight has largely flown under the radar of national environmental groups. On an unusually warm evening this past February, I visited the compressor station site for a second time. In three months, another massive swath of forest had been clear-cut and buildings were under construction. Some workers were on-site building an Atlantic Coast Pipeline office - which is now complete.

"People feel discouraged," Joyner said. But new county commissioners, she added, seem more concerned about what citizens want to see in the area, and have been traveling around the county to listen to concerns. Community leaders in Northampton County like her are still battling, organizing with groups around the state and region as they have over the decades on many public health hazards.

"We're fighting coal ash, we're fighting to keep cancer out," Tony Burnette, Northampton County's NAACP chapter president, said. "And in the end they're going to blow us up. That's why we fight."

Last year, Dominion Energy offered four Native American tribes in the Eastern U.S. - the Lumbee Tribe and the Haliwa Saponi Indian Tribe in eastern North Carolina and the Monacan Indian Nation and Rappahannock Indian Tribe in Virginia - $1 million each in exchange for agreeing "not to hinder or delay the development, construction or operation" of the pipeline. In the contract was a waiver of the tribes' rights to present any claims against the pipeline and a requirement to issue a statement that they had each resolved any issues with developers.

It's unclear if the Virginia tribes signed the agreement. The North Carolina tribes, which have lived in and around Robeson County for hundreds of years, did not. "I took an oath to uphold the Lumbee way of life and that includes protecting our voice," Lumbee Tribal Chairman Harvey Godwin Jr. told The Robesonian in 2018.

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It wasn't an easy decision. Opinions about the pipeline have divided the Lumbee, who take their name from the Lumber River that winds through the area. Like many rural places, Robeson County's economy is struggling. Over the past two decades, it has lost thousands of manufacturing and farming jobs. According to a 2004 research report by a University of North Carolina Wilmington economics professor, a decline in the local manufacturing industry between 1993 and 2003 cost the county more than 18,000 jobs and $713 million per year in income and business taxes. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke brings in young students, but it hasn't kept the county's population from dwindling.

On top of the lack of jobs, residents have also had to contend with frequent floods. Many were still recovering from Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which dumped up to 14 inches of rain and caused the Lumber River to overflow. More damage inflicted by Hurricane Florence in 2018 prompted Congress to pledge more than $50 million in FEMA recovery funds.

The proposed route of the pipeline ends here in Robeson County, the last stop on my trip through North Carolina. The county government endorsed the pipeline project in early 2016 amid guarantees that it would provide $900,000 a year in revenue from property taxes once completed. People here have heard such a pitch before: According to Donna Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe and senior fossil fuels campaigner with the environmental advocacy organization Friends of the Earth, and her husband, Reverend Mac Legerton, acting director of the North Carolina Climate Solutions Coalition, in an 8-mile radius within the heart of the indigenous community in Robeson County, there are 11 existing or planned natural gas projects.

At a small diner in Prospect, just down the street from a compressor station owned by Piedmont Natural Gas, a subsidiary of Duke, that has leaked in recent years, I had breakfast with Chavis and Legerton. "With the deconstruction of the rural economy, the local politicians and state policy makers are grasping at straws because survivability becomes a priority, not sustainability," Legerton said. "We're vulnerable to the money the fossil fuel industry has."

Chavis said proposals for these types of industrial projects have come and gone for several decades. But the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was a "wake-up call for indigenous people in North Carolina," she added. Locals in the community have spent years studying the damage the project could cause, recruiting student lawyers to read contracts, poring over environmental justice assessments line by line, and making sure people know about permit hearings.

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The project would cross archaeological sites and other land that the Lumbee consider sacred, as well as several swamps that are part of the larger watershed Robeson County taps for its drinking water. The wetland ecosystem that includes the Lumber River is rich in biological diversity and home to endangered or threatened species such as the red-cockaded woodpecker, the wood stork, and Michaux's sumac.

These are resources indigenous peoples in the area have relied on for centuries and have fought to protect, but their ability to do so is limited. Congress does not recognize the Lumbee as a sovereign nation and has not allowed them the full benefits of federal protection. "Non-federally recognized tribes are doubly vulnerable," said Ryan Emanuel, a member of the Lumbee Tribe and professor at North Carolina State University. He said that many Native Americans living east of the Mississippi are members of tribes that aren't considered sovereign because they have no federal recognition. "Without federal recognition, we don't have access to protective standards - even substandard ones," he said.

Piedmont is also planning to build a liquefied natural gas facility in an area where many indigenous people live. Amid the growth of natural gas production, Chavis said she has had many conversations in recent months with people in tribal communities along the East Coast about their "responsibility to environmental integrity."

"For me, one of the important things that has come out of this, which I hope gets stronger, is that indigenous peoples of Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, and South Carolina continue to be able to strengthen their connection to ancestral teachings using an environmental lens," she said. "Once we've given up hope, we've given up."

There were so many pink ribbons along the route that I didn't see. Each one could be a conversation, an argument, a promise, a loss: a piece of land traded for too little compensation, a quiet corner of undisturbed habitat, a favorite tree chopped down.

Much of the land the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is set to traverse, and the people who call it home, are already altered by it. Trees are cut, holes are dug, relationships in communities have shifted, and trust in government has been shaken. Many people told me they believe another project like this will likely appear in front of regulators after this one is done - after temperatures rise, after more consequences of climate change take hold, after more pipelines explode or leak. But they're cautiously optimistic the Atlantic Coast Pipeline could be stopped for good.

Thanks to the start-stop progression of the project, its costs are ballooning, rising from an initial estimate of between $4.5 billion and $5 billion to $7.5 billion in three years, and Dominion executives have acknowledged they're running into larger hurdles than they expected. Federal regulators allow pipeline companies up to a 14 percent return on investment from customers. In the case of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, utility companies are the customers - so they can charge ratepayers for the project.

"It's risk-free guaranteed money for them and guaranteed payment from ratepayers," said Gerken, from SELC.

While the fate of the pipeline is still uncertain, the fight to build it has once again revealed the power that energy companies maintain over low-income and rural people, and the ways in which local officials and politicians enable this power. It has reenergized the decades-long movement against resource extraction and pollution in Appalachia and in the rural South, bringing together racially and socioeconomically diverse stakeholders - conservative landowners, progressive activists, environmental justice advocates, farmers, pastors, business owners, students - from all over the region to fight it.

"This was a particularly badly planned pipeline, and for that reason, it's had a particularly poor start," Gerken said. "They chose to blast through some of the most sensitive and protected terrain in the Southeast and subjected themselves to rigorous legal standards they couldn't meet. Their plan was to use political pressure to bully the project though. Unfortunately for them, we have a judicial system. That's why FERC has to ask really hard questions. Is this self-dealing, or does it have a purpose?"

At the beginning of this process several years ago, Gerken said there was no room for error for environmental groups - but things have changed. From this point on, Atlantic Coast Pipeline has to "win everything for this pipeline to succeed," he said, including new permits from several federal agencies.

"It is now the pipeline company that is up against the clock."
This story is a collaboration between Grist and bioGraphic, a nonprofit magazine about nature and sustainability powered by the California Academy of Sciences.

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Tracing the path of the proposed 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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The pink ribbons start in northern West Virginia. Tied to flimsy wooden posts stuck a few inches into the earth, they're easy to miss as they whip in the crisp, fall wind. Heading south, they dot landscapes for 600 miles, marking the proposed route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

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Lumbee Tribe Fears Impact of Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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Lumbee Tribe Fears Impact of Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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This article gives context to how the Lumbee Tribe feel about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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Every morning, the Energy News Network compiles the top stories about the clean energy transition and delivers them to your inbox for free. Sign up today!

Left out of the formal permitting process, North Carolina's Lumbee Tribe and others seek a voice before pipeline construction crosses their land and waters.

American Indian tribes in the path of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are making an eleventh-hour plea to stop construction until regulators can ensure ancient artifacts and their ancestral lands won't be damaged.

The largest tribe east of the Mississippi, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina has rarely weighed in on environmental permits. But its recent resolution, along with one from the state's Commission of Indian Affairs, reflects growing concern among tribes that the pipeline could destroy swamps and forests that have long sustained their culture.

With nearly all the required permits in hand, the project's developers have already begun felling trees along a 600-mile corridor from West Virginia to North Carolina's Robeson County.

Pipeline foes have mounted an array of legal challenges, and this week showcase the plight of the Lumbee in a new documentary, Robeson Rises . And though backers of the resolutions doubt they can derail the project altogether, they hope at least some of their concerns can be addressed before it's too late.

"We don't have the power to stop it - because it's a big train and it's rolling pretty hard and fast politically," said Jan Lowery, a representative on the Lumbee Tribal Council and sponsor the tribe's resolution. "But we think we can slow it down to be heard."

Tribal communities in direct path of pipeline

American Indians comprise just over 1 percent of North Carolina residents, but they make up 13 percent of those living within a mile of the gas pipeline's route. In Robeson County, where the Lumbee Tribe is concentrated, indigenous people are the largest ethnic group, accounting for more than 40 percent of the population.

The pipeline will cross more than 300 rivers and streams, including the Meherrin River, Coharie Creek, and tributaries to the Lumber River - all waterways that correspond to the names of area tribes. The project's 100-foot wide construction berth will disturb more than 450 acres of wetlands that house scores of unmarked graves of tribal forbearers.

Despite these potential impacts - and the three years pipeline developers spent preparing for the project - tribal officials were slow to pass their resolutions. One reason: early disagreement among tribal elders, some of whom viewed environmental concerns as secondary to the need for economic development in an impoverished region.

Tribal member Greg Cummings, the mayor of Pembroke and a long-time economic developer, called pipelines "environmentally sound," and said an additional one could recruit industry to the region, which has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs in recent decades. "Natural gas plays a major, major role," he said.

Donna Chavis, a Lumbee and anti-pipeline organizer from Robeson, said people like Cummings "were much more outspoken than those who had the questions. That got a lot of early play." Though Cummings wasn't on the 21-member Lumbee Tribal Council, she said, "he's Lumbee and he's a big business leader. His voice was significant."

But as the scope of the pipeline's impact became clearer, some supporters began to reconsider.

"We felt like we needed consultation," said Al Locklear, a member of the Lumbee Tribal Council, sharing what he viewed as shoddy construction on an existing, smaller pipeline in Robeson County. Locklear remains a vocal advocate for the pipeline , but he wants more say over the construction process. "We've seen what the other pipeline folks did, and quite frankly, and it's pretty much a soggy bottom mess," he said.

Seeking a voice in the process

With increasing backing from leaders, and under mounting pressure from constituents, last spring the , the , the Haliwa-Saponi , and the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs all penned asking for formal dealings between tribes and federal officials.

But they were largely rebuffed. Despite long ties to the area's land and waters, the region's tribes lack full recognition from the federal government, leaving them with no official territory and uncertain legal footing on permitting matters.

Federal regulators engaged only the U.S.-recognized Eastern Band of Cherokee - located in the Blue Ridge Mountains some 300 miles from the pipeline's route. In an impact statement issued over the summer, they assigned outreach to state-recognized tribes to the pipeline's developers.

"There have been scores of small-group meetings with officials and stakeholders in the area," said Tammie McGee, a spokeswoman for Duke Energy, a chief investor of the pipeline along with Dominion Resources.

The tribes say these meetings don't qualify as true "consultation." The term is ill-defined , admitted Ryan Emanuel, a non-voting member of the Indian affairs commission. But a discussion between developers and tribal government in the absence of regulators clearly doesn't qualify.

"I saw this first hand when I went to meetings last year between the developer and the tribes," he said. "The developers, if left to their own devices, all they're really there for is to give a sales pitch and to dismiss concerns that people have about their project."

The new resolutions bring these concerns to the forefront once more.

"We buried our ancestors in the forest and in what are now riparian corridors... the last relatively undeveloped places in eastern North Carolina," said Emanuel, a Lumbee and professor at North Carolina State University. "How are the human remains of my ancestors...going to be treated if they are encountered?"

Stakes include sacred plants, waterways

The tribes' latest statements also detail how the pipeline could disturb culturally important waterways and vegetation.

"A lot of American Indians still rely on the earth for medicine," said Lowery, the Lumbee resolution sponsor, remembering her grandmother's use of sassafras and other types of tree bark. "We're tearing down all these White Oak trees. What is that going to mean for people that live in that area?"

To answer questions like these, tribal communities are demanding a "full and meaningful government-to-government consultation with all Indian nations, including the Lumbee, that attach cultural or religious concerns" to the pipeline. Until this consultation happens, the Lumbee resolution says, all the project's remaining permit applications should be denied or suspended.

The Commission of Indian Affairs resolution , adopted but still in draft form, goes a step further, naming Gov. Roy Cooper as well as the federal agency that oversees pipelines and calling for state permits already granted to be rescinded.

In both cases, questions about the merits of the pipeline were secondary to concerns that tribes didn't have a chance to make specific demands about how it would be constructed. That's in part why the Lumbee resolution passed unanimously.

"They're really interested in the process, a fair and engaged process," said Emanuel. "You have different political leanings and different thoughts on economic development, but everybody is on the same page when it comes to indigenous rights."

Pipeline opponents say it was important for the tribes to go on record, no matter their timing. "Even though some might say it's the twelfth hour," said Chavis, the Lumbee resolution is "the response of a governing body to its citizens."

The tribes' goal is for pipeline developers to better protect waterways, medicinal plants, and artifacts as construction proceeds. They also want training for local fire departments and EMT's in the event of a gas line explosion.

"Those are the types of things that we as Indian people are concerned about that we've never had a chance to voice," said Lowery. "And that's what we want: a voice."

Tribes face uphill battle to be heard

With their resolution's passage, the Lumbee have joined with the Haliwa-Saponi on a formal to the federal agency that regulates the pipeline, asking it to rehear the project's case with more deliberation of tribal considerations.

Tamara Young-Allen, a spokeswoman for the agency, didn't know when it might act on the petition, and couldn't comment on specifics of a "pending matter." But, she said, "I'm sure the commission's order on rehearing will address those concerns."

Still, the agency has a bad reputation when it comes to consulting even federal-designated tribes, according to Emanuel. It's also widely seen as a "rubber-stamp" for pipeline projects, having rejected only two applications submitted in the last 30 years .

The odds the Cooper administration will rescind the project's clean water permits also seem long. The state has historically denied a miniscule fraction of permit applications it has received, and officials doubted a denial of the permit would have withstood a court challenge.

But pipeline foes like Chavis remain hopeful.

"I wouldn't be celebrating it if I didn't think it would make a difference," she said of the Lumbee measure.

No matter what, she said the resolutions marks a turning point in the tribes' self-determination and their treatment of future proposals that might impact the environment.

"Taking the total picture and not just the promise of jobs in a very poor area is a huge development," she said. "It's a new day for any other types of infrastructure coming down the road."
Read the resolution by the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina:
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Read the resolution by the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs:
[documentcloud url="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4417277-N-C-Commission-on-Indian-Affairs-Draft.html" responsive=true sidebar=false]

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North Carolina tribes fear impact of Atlantic Coast Pipeline construction | Energy News Network

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Every morning, the Energy News Network compiles the top stories about the clean energy transition and delivers them to your inbox for free. Sign up today! Left out of the formal permitting process, North Carolina's Lumbee Tribe and others seek a voice before pipeline construction crosses their land and waters.

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Lumbee Tribe Consultation of Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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Lumbee Tribe Consultation of Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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This document was drafted by the Lumbee Tribe in protest against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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Effect of Atlantic Coast Pipeline on Lumber River and Lumbee Tribe

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Effect of Atlantic Coast Pipeline on Lumber River and Lumbee Tribe

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This news article talks about the effects of ACP on the Lumbee Tribe

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The now-canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline project would have crossed streams and wetlands important to Indigenous people in North Carolina, raising concerns from tribes about negative impacts to water quality and how their voices were unheard in pipeline planning.

In the journal Water, Ryan Emanuel, a professor at North Carolina State University and Lumbee Tribe member, co-authored a case study that evaluated the potential impacts the pipeline would have had on water quality and the challenges faced by Indigenous people in North Carolina during pipeline planning.

The Abstract spoke to Emanuel about the case study:

TA: What were some of the potential impacts of the pipeline for water that concerned members of tribes in North Carolina?

Emanuel: Many of the water impacts would have occurred during construction. As you dig trenches and disturb the land, you increase sedimentation, which can drastically alter stream environments. Other impacts come from clear-cutting of forested wetlands adjacent to streams near pipeline crossings. Removing wetland forests also has implications for water temperature.

Cumulatively, all of those things combine to change the aquatic environment in ways that are detrimental to plants, animals and people who rely on the water for various purposes.

This ties in a belief that some indigenous people hold of water as a being. This is a common sentiment expressed not just in my tribe. Native American tribes across North America and Indigenous peoples throughout the world often conceptualize rivers as beings. How do we ask for and obtain consent from the river? What does it mean to learn that someone is planning to harm a loved one in this way whether you like it or not?

The Abstract: Historically, what is the significance of water to the Lumbee?

Emanuel: In Lumbee history, our people were isolated because the terrain was inhospitable to outsiders. There's a long colonial record of outside powers unable to navigate through this region, getting lost, or chalking up our territory in eastern North Carolina to one giant swamp where no one would want to go.

Today, we honor that past by taking care of swamps and wetlands in any way that we can.

TA: Were there other concerns about the pipeline raised by tribes in North Carolina?

Emanuel: Whether or not the developers planned it, the route they chose through North Carolina would have been through traditional and contemporary areas of three tribes: the Lumbee, Coharie and Haliwa-Saponi.

For Lumbee people, one of the biggest impacts would have come from the decision to put the southern terminus in Prospect, a rural community in Robeson County. Prospect is one of the oldest and most prominent Lumbee communities.

The terminus in Prospect would have included a large above ground metering station where the pipeline would have tied into the rest of the eastern N.C. pipeline network. This place, with its gorgeous night sky, would have experienced light pollution from a telecomm tower and aviation beacon included in the station plan.

TA: What were some of the obstacles faced by the Lumbee to participating in pipeline planning?

Emanuel: It's hard to talk about Native American issues in the Southeast without considering the interests of non-federally recognized tribes. Most of the Native Americans in North Carolina belong to non-federally recognized tribes.

Recommendations and best practices of the federal government advise permitting agencies to consult with native peoples regardless of their federal recognition status, but the letter of the law only compels agencies to consult with tribes that have federal recognition.

Agencies that ignore these recommendations, and stick to the minimum legal standard, are creating barriers for state-recognized tribes that may have a big stake in the outcome, but can't get their foot in the door.

During the pipeline planning, the Lumbee Tribe was in the middle of a federal recognition bid. There was some hesitation for the tribe's leaders to weigh in on a highly politicized issue while trying to build a consensus around federal recognition.

TA: What were the issues with timing?

Emanuel: When developers reached out to tribes it was too late to make a difference in planning decisions. Moreover, requests for locations of sacred sites or culturally important places that could be affected by the pipeline were narrow requests that did not cover the range of concerns that native peoples had.

TA: What was the issue of color blind planning?

Emanuel: The developers described their initial pipeline planning as blind to demographic or socioeconomic factors. This "color blind" planning is problematic, because it risks reinforcing racial or socioeconomic inequities that have existed for decades or centuries.

In the Southeast, for example, a pipeline route may encounter large pockets of Native American or African-American people who have already been exposed to historic patterns of discrimination for other pipelines, or for highways, landfills, etc.

TA: What lesson could be learned?

Emanuel: North Carolina and many other states with large Native American populations desperately need well-articulated, state-level tribal consultation policies.

All of the tribes that I discuss in this paper are recognized as native nations by the state of North Carolina. We could ask ourselves: What does it mean for North Carolina to acknowledge these tribes? When there are major decisions to be made that involve their rivers and territories, are we going to seek their advice and - ideally - their consent?

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N.C. Tribes Faced Obstacles to Atlantic Coast Pipeline Water Planning, Study Shows

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The now-canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline project would have crossed streams and wetlands important to Indigenous people in North Carolina, raising concerns from tribes about negative impacts to water quality and how their voices were unheard in pipeline planning.

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This news article gives context about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and how it affects the Lumbee River

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Twice an hour, Mary Ann Jacobs' office at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke begins to rumble. The walls shudder. On a track just outside, trains barrel by, taking goods to and from manufacturers in Robeson County, where Pembroke sits, in southeastern North Carolina.

"It's like being in an earthquake zone all the time," says Jacobs, an associate professor who chairs the American Indian Studies program at UNC Pembroke.

And now, Jacobs is worried about a new line coming through - one that's already bringing a different type of disruption to Robeson County: The proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), a 594-mile, interstate, natural-gas line funded by local utility powerhouses Dominion Resources, Duke Energy, and two subsidiaries, is slated to reach its terminus in Robeson County.

One could look at Robeson as simply one more community along the ACP's route from Harrison County, West Virginia, down through Virginia and into North Carolina.

But that would fail to account for the significance of Robeson County. The county is the ancestral home of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, whose 61,000 members make it the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi River. Many members of the Tuscarora tribe also live in Robeson. A mix of Native American, African-American, and Latino people together account for 68 percent of the population, making Robeson the most ethnically diverse rural county in the United States.

To the Lumbee tribe, the importance of Robeson County cannot be overstated.

"We have a strong sense of place, a sense of home, so even though a lot of our people may not have even grown up here, they still consider this home," says Alisha Locklear Monroe, a Lumbee and a former art teacher who still makes glass beads. "[That sense of place is] passed down to them through family traditions, how their family spoke about this place. ... There's some people who choose to literally live their whole lives here, and they never leave."

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A Pipeline in the Sand - THE BITTER SOUTHERNER

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Twice an hour, Mary Ann Jacobs' office at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke begins to rumble. The walls shudder. On a track just outside, trains barrel by, taking goods to and from manufacturers in Robeson County, where Pembroke sits, in southeastern North Carolina.

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Effect of Hurricane Flooding on Lumber River

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Effect of Hurricane Flooding on Lumber River

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This news article focuses on the increased hurricanes due to climate change, and how the increased hurricanes affects the water level of the Lumbee River.

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Hurricane Flooding Affects Lumbee River Basin

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Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Justine Neville, a Ph.D. student in NC State's College of Natural Resources and a 2018 North Carolina Sea Grant - Water Resources Research Institute Graduate Research Fellow at NC State. This post, including additional charts and graphs on nitrogen retention, first appeared on the WRRI site.

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Flooding in Lumber River due to Anthropogenic Climate Change

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Flooding in Lumber River due to Anthropogenic Climate Change

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This news article talks about one of the main effects of anthropogenic climate change on the Lumbee River, increased flooding.

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Preparing for more flooding on the Lumber River: 5 things to know

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Hurricanes have caused devastating floods along the river.

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This articles tells a story about the Lumbee River Spirit, highlighting the cultural importance of the Lumbee River to the Lumbee Tribe

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LEGEND OF BRAVEHEART AND THE TUSCARORA GIRL.

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This article gives extra context on specific details of the history of the Lumbee Tribe.

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Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . American
Varieties . Lumbee . Timeline | PBS

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This video gives context on Lumbee Tribe's fight for federal recognition, as they are a tribe with only state recognition

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Lumbee Native American Tribe Wants US Recognition  - "People of the Dark Water" - A WRAL Documentary

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I chose this article because it contains a general introduction to the Lumbee Tribe, their origins, their fight for self-governance, and their fight for federal-recognition

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Stilling, Glenn Ellen Starr. "Lumbee Indians." Encyclopedia of North Carolina. Ed. William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2006. Pages 699-703.

The full article is reprinted below, with permission from the University of North Carolina Press. The article is copyrighted by the University of North Carolina Press; all rights reserved.

Lumbee Indians

The Lumbee tribe, with 53,800 enrolled members, was in the early 2000s the largest of North Carolina's American Indian groups and the ninth-largest tribe in the United States. The Lumbee have been identified by a number of names during the history of their official relationship with the state of North Carolina. Native historians believe that the modern tribal name originates from the Lumber River, which traverses Robeson County and is an important historical, cultural, and spiritual symbol for many tribal members. Most Lumbees live in Robeson County and the adjacent counties of Cumberland, Hoke, and Scotland, and these counties are considered by the Lumbee Tribal Council to be the tribe's home territory, although there are also sizable communities of Lumbee people in Greensboro and elsewhere. Some Lumbees resided in the Bulloch County, Ga., area from 1890 through 1920. The Robeson County communities of Pembroke, Prospect, Union Chapel, Fairgrove, and Magnolia have long been predominantly Lumbee.

Theories of Lumbee Origins

The earliest and perhaps most famous theory of the Lumbee tribe's origins is the so-called Lost Colony theory, proposed in 1885 by Robeson County legislator and local historian Hamilton McMillan and later expanded upon by North Carolina historian Stephen B. Weeks. The theory holds that the Lumbee are descendants of Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Island colonists. The colonists left their settlement, according to the theory, sometime after Governor John White had returned to England in 1587, moving south to an island or mainland location called "Croatoan"-the sole word White and his men found carved in a wooden post upon returning to the island in 1590. There the English colonists settled among and intermarried with the friendly Croatan Indians, and by 1650 they migrated to the area of present-day Robeson County. The Lost Colony theory gained considerable credence among Lumbee people as well as non-Indians when Lumbee historian and author Adolph Dial argued in favor of it during the latter half of the twentieth century.

John R. Swanton, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution, wrote a report for the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1933 on the probable origins of the Lumbee. His research concluded that the tribe descended mainly from Siouan tribes, primarily the Saura (Cheraw) and Keyauwee. The Saura theory of origin has also been supported by Jack Campisi, an ethnohistorian who was the primary author of the tribe's massive 1987 petition to the Bureau of Indian Affairs seeking full federal tribal recognition, and by William Sturtevant, editor of the Smithsonian Institution's Handbook of North American Indians.

Several other theories have been advanced, including the Cherokee theory, which states that during the Tuscarora War of 1711-13, Cherokees joined Col. John Barnwell in fighting the Tuscarora and marched home through Robeson County. Some Cherokees may have remained there and intermarried with local residents. Angus Wilton McLean, a Robesonian who served as governor, advocated this theory before Congress in 1913. Mary W. Norment, in an 1875 book, also proposed descent from the Tuscarora. Lumbee oral tradition reveals no fewer than four other migration theories, documented by anthropologist Robert K. Thomas in an unpublished 1976 report.

Archaeological research reported by Stanley Knick in 1988 established that the land that makes up Robeson County has been inhabited by native peoples continuously from 12,000 b.c. (the early Paleo-Indian period), through the Archaic period (8000-1000 b.c.) and Woodland period (1000 b.c.-1600 a.d.), and up to the present day. In addition, Robeson County was a zone of cultural contact from the Middle Archaic period through the Woodland period and into colonial times. Knick argues that Indians from tribes of three eastern Carolina language families (Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Eastern Siouan) interacted with the Indians already living in the area. Early in the colonial period, European diseases and Indian wars began to decimate the southeastern tribes. As these processes unfolded, remnants of tribes from the three Eastern Carolina language families-primarily Saura and Siouan-speaking Indians-coalesced with the Indians already living in geographically isolated Robeson County. The area, dominated by swamps and other marginal lands for settlement and agriculture, did not generally interest whites, so the Indians' chance of survival was increased. Evidence suggests that the amalgamated tribe that became the Lumbee was in place in Robeson County by 1750.

Discrimination and Injustice in the Nineteenth Century

Like most of North Carolina's American Indian people, the Lumbee lived in relative obscurity for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Any sense of difference was likely tempered by the fact that Lumbee people spoke English, followed the same agricultural practices as white settlers, attended Christian churches, and in many other ways blended in with the rest of the sparse population of the marginal lands in and around Robeson County. For political and other purposes, prior to the revised state constitution of 1835, the Lumbee were classified as "free persons of color." But the 1835 constitution decreed that "no free Negro, free mulatto, or free person of mixed blood, descended from ancestors to the fourth generation inclusive" could vote for state legislators. Under this constitution, Lumbee people, like other American Indians in the state, lost many of their civil rights. Later, the Lumbee and other free nonwhites were also stripped of their rights to serve in the militia or to own or carry firearms or other weapons without a license. Some Lumbees used the courts to challenge their classification as free persons of color. The June 1837 court case State v. Oxendine, the 1853 case State v. Noel Locklear, and an 1857 case against William Chavers for carrying a shotgun are examples in which the challenge proved successful.

The Lumbee endured many privations and injustices during the Civil War, including forced conscription to serve as laborers building fortifications at Fort Fisher near Wilmington, starvation, and harsh treatment by the Home Guard. One such incident led to the rise of perhaps the most famous figure in tribal history, Henry Berry Lowry. Due to a complex series of accusations and incidents involving thefts and conscription, the Home Guard shot Lowry's father and brother while he watched from hiding. He and a triracial band of supporters then began an eight-year (1865-72) "war" to avenge those deaths and, indirectly, other injustices suffered by the Lumbee people. The Lowry Band, outlawed in 1868, killed 18 men and was pursued by local, state, and federal militia, detectives, and bounty hunters. The reward for Lowry rose from $300 in 1866 to $12,000 in 1871-72. Lowry was arrested twice, escaped from pursuers many times (and from jail on the two occasions when he was arrested), and was never tried. He disappeared mysteriously in February 1872, and today he remains an important symbol of Lumbee pride and the tribe's authentic Indian identity.

Lumbee Pursuit of Education, Civil Rights, and Self-Governance

A desire for education has traditionally been a central concern of the Lumbee. Amendments to the state constitution in 1875 provided for segregated public schools but made no mention of Indians. Lumbees were disallowed from attending white schools and, consistent with their resistance of having laws restricting blacks applied to them, they would not attend schools for African Americans. Progress began with an 1885 state law, sponsored by Rep. Hamilton McMillan, that designated the tribe as "Croatan Indians" and provided for them separate schools, their own school committees, and the right to select their own teachers. McMillan sponsored a second law, enacted in 1887, that provided for the establishment of a normal (or teacher-training) school for the Croatans and set aside $500 for instructor salaries. Public school education began to improve in the 1920s, when the normal school had graduated several teachers. Thirty-one subscription schools (one-room wooden buildings) were built by Indians in Indian communities. By 1924 Robeson County Indian schools had a total enrollment of 3,400 students.

The growth of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, which began as a school for the Lumbee in the late 1800s, is an important example of Lumbee educational efforts. The Lumbee have also worked for educational rights through legal activism. In the 1940s many Lumbees attempted to gain admission to colleges within North Carolina other than the school in Pembroke, and in 1972 tribal members fought to preserve Old Main, the building on the Pembroke campus that, for them, symbolized Indian education and progress. By the 1960s Robeson County had five school systems-four town systems, attended by whites and blacks, and a county system, attended mainly by Indians and blacks. Under the county's "double-voting" arrangement, residents of the towns could vote for both the town and the county school boards, but county residents could vote only for the county school board. In 1972-73 the county school system had 80 percent nonwhite enrollment, but the 12-member school board was 75 percent white. After Lumbee leaders were unable to change the situation through appeals to the state legislature, they sued under the Voting Rights Act in federal court. The court denied relief, but in 1975, in Janie Maynor Locklear v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court, saying that town residents could no longer vote for county school board members.

The most famous case of Lumbee activism occurred on 18 Jan. 1958 at a field near Hayes Pond, west of Maxton, provoked by two cross-burnings a few days earlier-one at the home of an Indian family in an all-white Lumberton neighborhood and the other at the home of a white woman who was involved with an Indian man. A planned Ku Klux Klan rally, announced by Klan grand wizard James W. "Catfish" Cole of Marion, S.C., received heavy advance publicity. The Lumbee made known their plans to disrupt the event.

The rally was attended by about 40 armed Klansmen, the county sheriff and several deputies, many newspaper and wire service reporters, and 1,500 or more Indians armed with rifles and shotguns. In preparation, the Klan put up a large banner, a sound system, and a naked light bulb atop a tall pole. While Cole was talking to the sheriff and deliberating on whether to begin his speech, one Lumbee grabbed the light pole while another broke the light bulb. A burst of shooting began. In twenty minutes, the shooting had ended, the Klan members had run off, and the field was cleared. There were no deaths, and the only injury was to a photographer whose face was grazed by shotgun pellets. The incident received widespread publicity, with coverage in Life magazine and the New York Times.

Other violent incidents have occurred in Robeson County. During the 1980s, drug trafficking and racial violence were the cause of several unsolved murders in the county. Poor economic and educational conditions were widespread, and reports documented unfair treatment of Native Americans by the criminal justice system. Large numbers of Native Americans, blacks, and whites held mass political meetings to address these and other concerns. A coalition, Concerned Citizens for Better Government, was formed and turned out 1,500 people for a protest march on Easter Monday 1987. The group supported the candidacy of Lumbee lawyer Julian Pierce for superior court judge. When Pierce was murdered in March 1988, local law enforcement officials proclaimed the case solved as a domestic dispute four days later.

On 1 Feb. 1988 Eddie Hatcher and Timothy Jacobs, both Tuscarora Indians, held the employees of the Robesonian newspaper hostage for ten hours in order to draw attention to the county's drug trafficking, violence, and corruption. As a condition of their release of the hostages, Hatcher and Jacobs obtained an agreement from the governor that a task force of state officials would be formed to investigate the problems. The incident brought national attention to Robeson County (although much of it was viewed by residents as unfavorable rather than sympathetic), and many positive changes resulted. The county appointed a triracial Human Relations and Unity Commission. A second Superior Court judgeship was created, and Lumbee Dexter Brooks was appointed to the position. A plan was developed to balance election districts for the County Commission according to the county's racial percentages, and the county's crime rate dropped. Lumbee people also attained new leadership positions. In 1992, for example, Lumbee Purnell Swett was offered the position of superintendent of the merged public schools of Robeson County. In 1994 Glenn Maynor was elected as the county's first Native American sheriff. The Lumbee tribe has had formal governance since 2001, when it installed its first elected tribal council, adopted a constitution, and appointed a supreme court.

The Fight for Federal Recognition

The Lumbee have never received funding through the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Indian Health Service, although the tribe has been working to obtain true federal recognition since 1888. By virtue of state recognition, they have received aid from other federal programs for Indians. In 1935 the Lumbee received a memo from the U.S. Department of the Interior stating that those who were of one-half or more Indian blood could organize under the Wheeler-Howard Indian Reorganization Act to receive employment, education, or reservation benefits. To determine who was eligible, Harvard anthropologist Carl C. Seltzer was sent to Robeson County to test the 209 Lumbees who were applying for recognition. According to his anthropometric measurements, only 22 qualified. Although Seltzer's methods fit the theories of race at that time, they later came to be viewed as invalid.

Several other bills representing various strategies for obtaining support for the Lumbee were introduced in Congress, but all were unsuccessful until the 1956 Lumbee Act. It designated the Indians living in Robeson and adjoining counties as "Lumbee Indians of North Carolina" (the state of North Carolina had recognized the Lumbee name three years earlier). The final sentence declared that the act did not make them eligible for any federal services offered to Indians, however, and that federal laws affecting Indians did not apply to the Lumbee.

In 1978 a set of seven mandatory criteria for federal acknowledgment of tribes was published in an attempt to make the process of recognizing additional tribes uniform, rigorous, and systematic. Tribes are required to prepare a detailed petition addressing all of these criteria, and the petition is then evaluated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Federal Acknowledgment. The Lumbee spent seven years preparing their three-volume petition and submitted it in 1987. Two years later, the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of the Solicitor issued a ruling that the language of the 1956 Lumbee Act forbade a relationship between the Lumbee and the federal government through the bureau. Therefore, the petition could not be considered unless Congress amended the last sentence of the Lumbee Act. This action prompted the Lumbee to continue seeking federal recognition by asking Congress to pass a new recognition bill, rather than asking that the 1956 act be amended and probably waiting many more years for their petition to be evaluated. From 1988 through 2003, the Lumbee introduced 12 bills asking for complete federal recognition. Two practically identical bills seeking Lumbee recognition were introduced in 2004 by Senator Elizabeth Dole and Congressman Mike McIntyre; Dole introduced another bill, the Lumbee Recognition Act, in March 2005.

Lumbee Language and Culture

The North Carolina Language and Life Project at North Carolina State University has conducted extensive research on Lumbee speech beginning in 1994. Researchers have found that Lumbee Vernacular English is much like other southern dialects, especially Appalachian English. It does, however, have its own distinctive features. Some of its unusual vocabulary words include "cuz" (a greeting for a fellow Lumbee) and "toten" (a smell, sound, or vision indicating the presence of a spirit). Linguistic features of Lumbee Vernacular English include perfective "I'm" ("I'm got to do it"), finite "bes" ("sometimes it bes that way"), and consonant cluster reduction ("ol'" for "old," for example). Some of the ways in which Lumbee speakers combine and pronounce words distinguish them from African American or white speakers in Robeson County.

The writings of anthropologists, Lumbee scholars, and a diverse array of "ordinary" Lumbee people illustrate several aspects of tribal culture. Placing great value on family is one key characteristic of the Lumbee, who typically maintain frequent (often daily) contact with extended family members. Children often live near their parents or on their parents' land. Most Lumbees marry within the tribe; a sampling of the tribal roll in 2002 showed that 70 percent of Lumbees were married to another tribal member. Many Lumbee people also have extensive knowledge of their personal genealogy.

Faith, church attendance, and love of church and gospel music are also central to Lumbee culture. According to one estimate, Robeson County has some 130 Lumbee churches (the majority of them Methodist and Baptist). The church serves a strong social function in Lumbee culture, involving members in a variety of activities beyond the Sunday worship service. Churches have also served as training grounds for Lumbee political, educational, and business leaders.

The Lumbee have always had a deep love for Robeson County and the Lumber River-often calling it the "Lumbee"-and a desire to own and hold onto their land. In the early 2000s, 64.6 percent of tribal members lived in seven primarily Lumbee communities in Robeson County, and another 30 percent lived elsewhere within North Carolina. Most Lumbees who have moved away (usually to find work) still consider Robeson County their home and return frequently to visit family, for the Lumbee Homecoming (a large festival held since 1970 around 4 July), and when retirement or job availability makes it feasible.

References: Karen I. Blu, The Lumbee Problem: The Making of an American Indian People (1980; rev. ed., 2001); Adolph L. Dial, The Lumbee (1993); Dial and David K. Eliades, The Only Land I Know: A History of the Lumbee Indians (rev. ed., 1996); Stanley Knick, The Lumbee in Context: Toward an Understanding (2000); Gerald M. Sider, Living Indian Histories: Lumbee and Tuscarora People in North Carolina (2003); Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling, The Lumbee Indians: An Annotated Bibliography Supplement (Web site, 2002-current); Walt Wolfram and others, Fine in the World: Lumbee Language in Time and Place (2002).

-By Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling

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Stilling, Glenn Ellen Starr. "Lumbee Indians." Encyclopedia of North Carolina. Ed. William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2006. Pages 699-703. The full article is reprinted below, with permission from the University of North Carolina Press. The article is copyrighted by the University of North Carolina Press; all rights reserved.

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Water in the Lumbee World: A River And Its People in a Time of Change

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Water in the Lumbee World: A River And Its People in a Time of Change

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This paper, written by a member of the Lumbee tribe, gives context on the cultural significance of the Lumber River to the Lumbee Tribe.

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Jordan Revels, environmental activist and member of Lumbee Tribe, discusses importance of Lumbee River and effect of Atlantic Coast Pipeline on the river

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Jordan Revels, environmental activist and member of Lumbee Tribe, discusses importance of Lumbee River and effect of Atlantic Coast Pipeline on the river

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This article contains an interview with Jordan Revels, focusing on his response to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

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The Land is Our Identity - The Architectural League of New York

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Jorden Revels shares his story of environmental activism.

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This article gives background on the Lumber River in general. Specifically, where it is in North Carolina and whether it's classified as a state-managed wild scenic river.

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Focal Point Marketing Web Design - Brad Sappenfield

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On April 15, 1996, North Carolina Governor James Hunt asked the Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, to designate a segment of the Lumber River as a state-managed national wild and scenic river under Section 2(a)(ii) of the national Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

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Climate Change in the Lumbee River Watershed and Potential Impacts on the Lumbee Tribe of NC

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Climate Change in the Lumbee River Watershed and Potential Impacts on the Lumbee Tribe of NC

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This paper, written by Ryan Emanuel, a Lumbee tribe member and environmental scientist, focuses on the effects of climate change on the Lumbee River and how it affects the Lumbee Tribe.

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Contemporary Water Research - 2018 - Emanuel - Climate Change in the Lumbee River Watershed and Potential Impacts on the

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This is the Lumbee Constitution. It's a primary source that gives us a glimpse for how the Lumbee government operates and what values the Lumbee Tribe hold

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This article gives information about how the Lumbee's government operates.

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This article gives information on the history of the lumbee tribe, like when they were recognized as a tribe, and their way of life.

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History and Culture Backup | lumbee-tribe-of-nc

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In 1885, the tribe was recognized as Indian by the State of North Carolina. The tribe has sought full federal recognition from the United States Government since 1888. In 1956, Congress passed the Lumbee Act, which recognized the tribe as Indian. However, the Act withheld the full benefits of federa…