Landowners respond to Dominion pipeline survey lawsuits

This updated and expanded story includes reporting from a previous, shorter piece on Dominion’s pipeline lawsuits posted late last month. This week, courts in Nelson and Augusta counties are expected to start delivering Dominion Resource’s Christmas present to landowners there: the first of dozens of lawsuits, announced last month, against holdout residents who since May […]

Dominion sues landowners for pipeline survey access

Dominion has filed suit against holdout landowners in Nelson and Augusta counties who since May have refused to let the energy company survey their land for its proposed 550-mile natural gas pipeline. According to Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle, the company filed 20 suits in Nelson County and 27 more in Augusta County last Thursday and […]

As Dominion makes the case for its pipeline to feds, locals say they’ll keep fighting it

Dominion’s plans for a 550-mile natural gas pipeline through Virginia are marching ahead, and with the release of the company’s first reports to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), anti-pipeline activists in Nelson County are finding more reasons to rally opposition to the multi-billion-dollar project. The federal approval process requires companies to file a dozen […]

Local energy nonprofit to start selling carbon credits

Charlottesville’s Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP) announced this week that it’s entering the “voluntary carbon market,” and will be selling carbon credits generated by energy-saving weatherization projects to individuals and companies that want to buy their way to a smaller carbon footprint. According to a statement released Monday, LEAP’s Save a Ton Program will issue […]

Forest fracking: Understanding the decision on drilling in the GW

Early on a Tuesday morning last month, Sarah Francisco got an e-mail she’d been waiting years to receive. Francisco, a senior attorney at the Virginia office of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, is the conservation group’s point person on the U.S. Forest Service’s long-delayed management plan for Virginia’s George Washington National Forest. The […]

Van der Linde disputes claims of recycling slowdown

An Albemarle County supervisor has questions about a temporary slowdown in operations at a local recycling plant, but Peter van der Linde says his facility is running strong—and is about to see a big upgrade. Samuel Miller District Representative Liz Palmer serves on the county’s Long Range Solid Waste Solutions Advisory Committee, which is tasked […]

Tree Stewards’ sale offers inexpensive saplings

The Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards will be back at Saturday’s City Market for the group’s second-annual fall tree sale, offering up hundreds of carefully cared for saplings ready for planting for low prices. The sale runs at the Market in the city’s Water Street parking lot from 7am to noon today, Saturday, October 11. The […]

Dominion formally announces pipeline partnership

Dominion Resources has formally announced it will pursue its planned natural gas pipeline through Virginia as part of a multi-billion-dollar partnership with North Carolina electricity giant Duke Energy and two other energy companies. The proposed 550-mile pipeline, previously called the Southeast Reliability Project, is now dubbed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Until the formal partnership announcement […]

Hundreds turn out to hear Nelson supes grill Dominion on pipeline

“Virginia is for lovers, not pipelines.” “You shall not pass.” “Humpback wails over pipelines.” The gauntlet of signage on the sidewalk outside Nelson Middle School Tuesday evening ahead of the community’s first public meeting with representatives from Dominion Resources made the sentiments of hundreds of local residents clear: They don’t want to see the company […]