Community, about power. It is a story about the wonders of modern technology and their consequences. This is the story of the Mountain Valley pipeline, a 303 milelong natural gas pipeline that is being installed in the Appalachian Mountains of virginia and west virginia. In the late 20th century, natural gas became cheaper and more accessible because of a process called fracking. Today natural gas is the number one source of Electricity Generation in the United States. Instead of relying on road or rail, compressed natural gas can be transported passively through pipelines. Many leaders and politicians have dubbed natural gas as a bridge fuel that would lead the nation to renewable resources. I think the natural gas bill is good. It is an important bridge fuel. The co2 emissions for gas are half what they are for coal. However, natural gass role as a bridge fuel does not come without problems. When burned, natural gas releases methane, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, and other toxic chemicals into the air. Fracking can pollute groundwater and cause earthquakes. Additionally, a pipelines construction requires sacrifices from the land owners along its path. My farm was flourishing and doing well. Then the pipeline come along and started moving trees around and all my fish had big fish kills. All my fish died. I had big bullfrogs in there. They all died. A lot of folks here had to work hard all their lives to get what they got and put food on their tables. The pipeline comes along and says, we will give half what your property is worth or just take it. Eminent domain is the governments right to take right of property for public use. In 2005, the u. S. Supreme court case clarified that private companies, not just the government, can assert Eminent Domain if their projects are necessary and will economically benefit the region. The federal Energy Commission decides whether each pipeline should be approved to use Eminent Domain. In the past two decades, ferc has reviewed more than 470 pipelines. Of these, they have only rejected two. Pres. Trump it should not take 10 years to get the permits to build a road or a pipeline. We have brought that number way, way down. It is highly regulated. I cant think of anything that is more highly regulated. Now the agencies that do their studies are being questioned. It is an upside down, bizarro world situation. In october 2017, ferc approved the Mountain Valley pipeline by awarding a certificate of public necessity and convenience. The federal Energy Regulatory commission, in deciding whether the pipeline was a matter of public convenience and necessity, took into consideration the fact that the people who are fracking the gas had contracts to sell the gas. Those contracts were with their own subsidiaries. So they were saying yes, the gas is necessary, because we have buyers for it, and the buyers are us. The vast majority of the natural gas in the pipeline will not fuel appalachia. Along the pipelines past, there have been many protests to attempt to halt pipeline work. Two of these are located on forested slopes in montgomery county, virginia. What i would like to see accomplished is for the pipeline to not be completed and, failing that, to slow it down and make it as expensive as possible. I think we have done a decent job. The activists have been on site and in the trees for over 500 days. Scientists and residents are concerned about the Mountain Valley pipeline in particular because of the regions steep slopes, caves, sinkholes, and underground underwater flow. We have a seismic zone. We have steep slopes and the groundwater issues, all in one place. In this part of the route. And the potential is there to have a catastrophe. I believe we have had catastrophes on less severe land than this with Natural Gas Pipelines around the United States. Since 1986, pipeline accidents in the United States have killed 500 people and injured 4000 more. Federal courts have ruled that the Mountain Valley pipeline was approved without considering all of the environmental impacts, workerc ordered a halt on in october of 2019. Many pipeline workers go without jobs when the project was on hold. This is what they have done their whole life. This is all they know. The fact that they are sitting on the bench without working, it is not right what is going on. Mountain valley pipeline llc argues that the pipeline will be beneficial for the appalachian economy because it provides thousands of jobs. However, the project states that after the construction of the pipeline, it will only provide 34 jobs. Again, we cannot continue to burn fossil fields and have a habitable planet. We have a decision to make. So the idea that Renewable Energy production means fewer jobs, to me it means more years of jobs. 2020 election, we believe candidate should rethink Energy Policy to transition to renewable sources. We believe Energy Policy should include generous job retraining programs for fossil fuel workers as we shift towards renewables. We hope that approval for all new Energy Projects will be conducted in a fair, scientific, and unbiased way that will consider the impact of each project on climate change. Todays decisions about the future of energy in the United States will help determine the future of america and the world. You can watch each winning studentcam documentary online at studentcam. Org