Following the announcement July 5, 2020, that Dominion and Duke were cancelling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the Eight Rivers Council sent the following appreciative letter to many of you.

On Sunday July 5, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy announced the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) “due to ongoing delays and increasing cost uncertainty which threaten the economic viability of the project.”

 https://news.dominionenergy.com/2020-07-05-Dominion-Energy-and-Duke-Energy-Cancel-the-Atlantic-Coast-Pipeline?fbclid=IwAR0PbWHbSYpoI0qhzO7_Vv0hSHo5MRdsotNqRDbrScj-vqlZAvPF9rf19Xw

Many of you receiving this update have been active in opposition to the ACP.  You have spent hours learning the ins and outs of pipeline construction. You have studied up on steep slip-prone slopes, vulnerable watersheds and ecosystems. Eminent domain, climate change, and economic issues have been important to many of you. Many of you have attended meetings, written letters and comments, and talked with neighbors and friends about the risk of the ACP. Some of you have taken lessons in water quality monitoring and then performed baseline studies. Some of you have taken photos of deforestation and early construction. And much more…

This is your victory to share with tens of thousands of other committed, engaged, active citizens who prize our communities and our future. People like you who and who persevered against what experts said were impossible odds to defeat the ACP. People like you who challenged the well-funded, politically-connected Dominion and Duke companies by appealing to the regulatory and government agencies and courts hoping that our democratic system would prevail.

This is a victory for the future of our communities, and hope for others such as those who are battling the MVP (who we join in support).

I believe all of us who joined together in this battle have come to appreciate one another, knowing that when we join together we can be a force for good.

While we celebrate this awesome victory, we need to restrain from gloating over our neighbors who will be upset at the pipeline cancellation as they forgo the impermanent high paying jobs and temporary spending into our local businesses that construction would have brought. Let us pray that our shared love for our communities will ultimately draw us together. The ACP caused division in our rural communities between those for and those against the pipeline. Let us now set ourselves to the important task of building a vibrant, wholesome economy for future generations that is compatible with our pristine environment.

On behalf of Eight Rivers Council, thank you!

—Allen Johnson

Lots of folks ranging across the political ideological spectrum posted signs opposing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Eight Rivers Council overview of the then proposed ACP is archived and accessed by clicking this link.

Citizens took training to monitor water quality, take photos of construction and report violations, and wrote letters to FERC and government policymakers.

Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA) mobilized a coalition of 50 organizations in Virginia and West Virginia to fight the ACP.

Below are links to history of the battle that played a big part in defeating the ACP.