Chesapeake community resists natural gas project — again

Drivers honked their horns as they passed protesters chanting outside the Chesapeake Municipal Center an hour before the city council met on July 15. Rain doused the protesters’ signs, but that didn’t discourage them from taking their concerns inside.

Virginia Natural Gas plans to install a compressor station in Chesapeake, VA, that the company says is needed to ensure gas reaches its northern customers. But the local community, comprised predominately of people of color, is concerned about the additional air pollution such a project could bring. Natural gas combustion in compressor stations emit pollutants that can impact the cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological health of people nearby.

On July 15, the Chesapeake City Council approved rezoning the industrial area where the gas company intends to build the project — bringing the compressor station one step closer to reality. The council voted 6-3 in favor the rezoning. The public can submit comments to the State Corporation Commission (SCC) about the project until Aug. 5.

Those who oppose the project say they are already overburdened with pollution because they live next to other industrial facilities. This project, they say, would only add to that load.

“It’s important that we are taking steps to repair the harm from the past and making sure that projects like these aren’t continuing to be built in vulnerable communities,” said Leianis Gunn, Hampton Roads organizer with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

As gas moves through a pipeline, friction and elevation change can slow down its progress. So, compressor stations act as a boost by increasing pressure to push the gas.

This particular project is being proposed as a redundancy to help deliver natural gas when other systems fail. If, for example, the Eastern Gas Transmission & Storage pipeline couldn’t effectively deliver gas to the Quantico Interconnection (south of the District of Columbia), the Columbia Gas Transmission interstate pipeline does not have enough pressure to get gas from Hampton Roads to Virginia Natural Gas’ customers. The Chesapeake Compressor Station would provide that boost if something were to happen upstream.

Capt. Dan Patrick, commander of Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, asked city council members to approve the rezoning so the compressor station would ensure the base never loses natural gas.

The gas company also cited conditions last winter that contributed to the second-highest natural gas demands in the company’s history so far. On Jan. 22, temperatures reached 24 degrees on average, and the company delivered 401,000 dekatherms. In January 2018, by comparison, the company saw its highest day of demand, reaching 406,000 dekatherms.

The company is also building the project to provide Smurfit Westrock, a paper packaging company, with continuous service even on the coldest days. According to the SCC project application, Westrock will get 10% or less of the capability.

The project will cost almost $90 million to build. Ratepayers will be charged $8.8 million annually to cover the cost of running the facility, which is an average of $1.96 a month per ratepayer.

But Chesapeake community members have resisted industrial projects like this for years as more natural gas and pipeline infrastructure moves into the area. The gas company tried to build a different compressor station in the same industrial area for the Header Improvement Project in 2020, but the gas company withdrew its application.

According to the Virginia Environmental Justice Screen, 82% of the neighborhoods around the project include people of color. An environmental justice report conducted by the gas company and two consulting firms found that 12 neighborhoods near the site had been subjected to redlining. In 1937, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation “redlined” African American neighborhoods across the country as risky investments.

The report also found that residents in the study area experience more environmental burdens than 80% of Americans. The study attributed most of those burdens to lead paint and a nearby superfund site.

“You want people to be safe,” said Joseph Davis, Eva Gardens Civic League president. “It falls down to environmental justice and respect of human life.”

Thomas Quattlebaum, manager of environmental programs at Virginia Natural Gas, said the station would only be used for about 20 days — the coldest days — of the year. He added that the station would use an electric motor-driven compressor and a backup gas generator if the station loses electricity. It would also capture emissions from blowdowns, which helps maintain the station, and reintroduce them into the distribution system for customer use.

Curtis Davis, corresponding author of a study looking at the community impacts of compressor stations, said in an email that stations with electric turbines significantly decrease on-site emissions and that combustion emissions are essentially eliminated.

Unlike other proposed compressor stations, the projected emissions from this project are low enough that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality will not require an air permit. According the Quattlebaum, the station would emit about 131 metric tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, which is equivalent to the emissions of about 30 cars driven for one year.

Even with the reduced environmental impacts, local advocates have said that any additional contribution to emissions is too much. The environmental justice report found 70 active sites with emissions already in the area. According to the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, Chesapeake City County had 6.8 micrograms per cubic meter of particulate matter in 2020. Fairfax County had the highest rating of 7.9 micrograms.

The compressor station study that Davis helped conduct suggests that gas companies should conduct continuous air monitoring and assess the cumulative impacts of pollution on a community-specific basis.

Joseph Davis’ neighborhood is about three football fields away from the proposed site. When the Bay Journal asked him what else the gas company could do about the station, he said they can “not put it there.”

The project application to the SCC explores two alternatives for providing a backup for Virginia Natural Gas northern customers. Both would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. If the project was elsewhere in Chesapeake City County, it would still have to reconnect with the Gidley Gate Station in Chesapeake.

After the public hearing at the July 15 city council meeting, Council Member Daniel Whitaker said, “I believe this to be vital infrastructure and, quite frankly, I don’t know as a parent, a citizen … how I could tell the family … you’re going to be cold at peak demands.”

Vice Mayor John de Triquet also pointed out that the public can share their concerns through the upcoming SCC public hearing expected this fall, which advocates say is a much more complicated process.

If the compressor station is built, the gas company plans to retire an outdated propane plant, which does have an air permit, on the same site in 2026. Virginia Natural Gas anticipates that service will begin in October 2027 if it’s not stalled by the SCC.