Transco doesn’t want you to know that hazardous sites are along its proposed route, that, if disturbed, could exacerbate groundwater contamination risks.

This op-ed, written by SACE Senior Decarbonization Manager Shelley Robins & Dr. Crystal Cavalier, originally appeared in the Greensboro News & Record on December 22, 2024.

When a Texas company gets its employee in Pennsylvania to write to our local newspaper about the weather we just experienced, you have to wonder why.

Williams Transco already owns more than 33,000 miles of pipelines in the country, but they are trying to ram through an unneeded massive expansion called the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project (SSEP) in our area. What they won’t tell you is that their projects keep getting scrapped because communities don’t want them: like the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project and Regional Energy Access Expansion.

Maybe it’s because they have one of the worst safety records in the country. According to the watchdog Pipeline Safety Trust, Williams is worse than other gas transmission operators in fatalities, cost and releases per incident.

Or it could be that, while they greenwash their image, they fail to mention recent winter blackouts in Texas and North Carolina were caused by freezing temperatures that shut down gas wells and caused the failure of mechanical components at gas-fired power plants — not by inadequate pipeline capacity.

For example, the Natural Resources Defense Council noted that “during Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022, 65 percent of gas plant outages in the region managed by PJM (the regional transmission organization) were due to plant failures. In addition, gas production fell by 20 percent due to the freezing of production wells.”

Transco stands to make a 14% return on investment for this $1.5 billion methane project. That would fuel Duke Energy’s proposed massive gas buildout in the South — not in the Triad. In their own application they state: “The benefits of the project are not realized by those who are impacted.”

Instead, the impacts are born by those whose properties are impacted and benefits are seen by those outside the project area, “including jobs, additional natural gas and very limited tax revenues.”

Transco’s massive methane pipeline threatens groundwater contamination for well users in Oak Ridge and areas crossing the headwaters of the city of Greensboro’s three water supply reservoirs, Lakes Higgins, Brandt and Townsend. The 42-inch-diameter pipe would cross more than 100 individual water bodies across 16 watersheds, including one major crossing of the Dan River in Rockingham County that would span 230 feet.

Transco doesn’t want you to know that hazardous sites are along its proposed route, that, if disturbed, could exacerbate groundwater contamination risks. The proposed route crosses one Superfund site, two unlined landfills, five inactive hazardous waste sites, and dozens of underground storage tanks.

Furthermore, Transco claims that increasing gas supplies is good for the climate because gas replaces coal. Methane, the primary ingredient in what the gas industry calls “natural gas,” is a fossil fuel and greenhouse gas, and it is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere over the short term. Methane is released across the gas supply chain — from the wells that produce it, through the pipes that carry it, even from the appliances that use it. Methane alone is responsible for one-third of global warming. Burning methane still releases carbon dioxide, the primary driver of climate change, and is responsible for super-charging Hurricane Helene, a storm that will require decades and billions for recovery.

How can Williams be proud of increasing the likelihood of another Helene?

Join residents across Virginia and North Carolina standing up to these bullies and demand our elected officials say no to this unneeded, dirty, dangerous project. We deserve better, cleaner, cheaper energy — and we know we can get it. Find out more at www.nossep.org