ABUSE OF LAND IN APPALACHIA ~ “Top Story of 2023”

Our political officials are ignoring our environment at all levels!

From the Article by Michael M. Barrick, The Appalachian Chronicle, December 31, 2023

BIG ISSAC, W.Va. – Our top story from 2023 is the brutal abuse of eminent domain to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).

This power grab of private property along a 300-mile stretch through West Virginia and Virginia for the benefit of one for-profit company is the most audacious land grab since the landmark Supreme Court decision, Kelo v. New London. That is when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the city of New London, Conn. to take the land of Susette Kelo and then sell it to private developers.

“Kelo broadened the scope of what could be defined as public use under eminent domain. In simpler terms, the supreme court decision created a legal precedent by which land seized can be deemed as public use even if it is not directly beneficial to the public.”

As Chloe Kauffman wrote for the James Madison Institute, “Kelo broadened the scope of what could be defined as public use under eminent domain. In simpler terms, the supreme court decision created a legal precedent by which land seized can be deemed as public use even if it is not directly beneficial to the public.”

Kauffman predicted, “In a post-Kelo world, the phrase ‘public use’ in the fifth amendment can be applied to anything deemed as economic development.’” The MVP is the poster child of her chilling warning.

It is quite a story. It includes a back-room deal at the highest levels of government. U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) and President Joe Biden colluded to slip in fast track construction of the MVP in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. It short-circuited the often effective efforts by MVP opponents in state and federal courts.

It is also a story about Authorities Having Jurisdiction turning a blind eye to MVP violations and damages, despite independent evidence pointing to the MVP as the primary cause of a destructive flood here in September. Families have lost their homes or had them rendered uninhabitable because of the dangers associated with being 500 feet downslope from the MVP Right-of-Way (ROW), within just hundreds of yards from 42” pipelines and with cancer-causing benzene hanging in the air of low-lying valleys.

PHOTO IN ARTICLE ~ Flooding in Big Isaac earlier this year; water is coming from direction of the MVP! This means the destruction of home places. This brutal abuse of eminent domain is beyond concerning; it is a warning that no inalienable, natural right is safe in the United States. If the liberty of keeping your home from being seized by the government is no longer applicable, what other authoritarian practices shall we be forced to tolerate? As you consider that question, take a few minutes to watch “Who Will Watch the Home Place” by Laurie Lewis.

Kelo, as proven by the MVP, has removed one of our most fundamental Constitutional protections; we know voting rights are under assault. What else is next?

It is betrayal at every level of government in multiple jurisdictions. It has impacted thousands, cost billions, violated our rights and impacted vulnerable people and watersheds such as the Karst Topography of Monroe County, W.Va. The MVP is hardly a good neighbor, as it claims.

It is an ecological disaster waiting to happen. That is as predictable as Kauffman’s warning about Kelo – anything goes – with the blessings of the Powers-that-Be.

(NOTE: Sarah and I spent much of the year traveling West Virginia to share stories from my book, “Fractured Sanctuary: A Chronicle of Grassroots Activists Fighting Pipelines of Destruction in Appalachia.” Michael & Sarah Barrick, of West Virginia & North Carolina.)