Norfolk Southern faces environmental violations in train derailment, coal spill in Roanoke County roanoke.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from roanoke.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Seeking to ease a two-year logjam, Mountain Valley Pipeline will restart a permitting process to cross nearly 500 streams and wetlands that remain as barriers to the completion of its natural gas pipeline.
The company said Tuesday that it will abandon its plan to use a blanket permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which allowed the pipe to be buried in trenches dug along the bottoms of water bodies before it was challenged in court.
Instead, it will apply for individual approvals for each open-cut crossing â a more costly and time-consuming process that will require new state and federal reviews of a project already swamped by legal and regulatory delays.
Pulaski County will be the site of the largest solar energy farm in Southwest Virginia and one of the largest on the East Coast.
On a 3-1 vote, the board of supervisors approved a special use permit that opens the way for Chicago-based Hecate Energy and its Virginia-based partner AgriSunPower to lease 2,700 acres of private farmland for the $400 Million project near the New River Valley Airport and NRV Commerce Park.
Supervisor Charles Bopp voted no, saying he opposed the project and felt bound to represent those residents who also oppose it.
Board Chairman Joseph Guthrie, who is among the many landowners who have agreed to lease farm land for the project, abstained. He had opened the meeting by reading a detailed statement defending the legality of participating in the decision process.
Photo: WINA
CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – Albemarle County is inviting residents to either of two Zoom virtual kickoffs of the Stream Health Initiative. The first meeting is Thursday night at 6, or you can catch the meeting Friday at noon. The county says both meetings will have the same content. You will view a brief introduction on the health of Albemarle County’s waterways, then you’ll learn about timelines and ways you can participate in the effort.
The reasons for this initiative is the latest water quality samples taken by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality found 56% of Albemarle’s river and stream miles were “impaired”. This means they don’t meet state standards for use, whether for drinking water, swimming, or fishing. Sixty-percent of the waterways in the Rivanna Watershed were either “fair” or “poor”, meaning they don’t meet state standards to sustain aquatic life. Much of the cause over the last 20 years is significant loss of forested
RICHMOND â As Hanover County residents opposed to a 1.7 million-square-foot Wegmans distribution center planned near their homes await a final decision on environmental permits, several state lawmakers have joined in the resistance.
The Rochester, N.Y.-based grocery chain hopes to see its warehouse complex rise off Sliding Hill and Ashcake Roads near Brown Grove, a rural African American community settled by freed slaves a few years after the Civil War.
Project boosters tout the 700 jobs expected as part of the $175 million project, which state and local officials first announced in Dec. 2019 after extended private negotiations. But lawmakers joined with community residents and environmental activists Monday in slamming the projectâs potential consequences during a press conference timed for the holiday honoring civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.