If you know where to look, you can spot them along the roadsides as you drive through the hilly farmland of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Short wooden stakes stand exactly 50 feet apart, topped with orange tape. The markers seem benign, but for many Lancaster residents, the threat they represent is anything but: These poles mark the proposed path of the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline.
The Atlantic Sunrise project is a $3 billion expansion of natural gas giant Williams’s Transco pipeline network. Building it will require burying a 42-inch pipe under miles of Amish country, below farms and rivers, in the face of opposition from many Lancaster residents.
Many of the pipeline’s opponents are already in open rebellion. A group of nuns who own land on the proposed pipeline’s path refused to grant Williams an easement on their property. Williams threatened to use eminent domain, and now the nuns from the Adorers of the Blood of Christ have sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in U.S. District Court. They argue the pipeline’s construction contradicts their deeply held religious beliefs and that using eminent domain to take their land is a violation of their First Amendment rights to freedom of religion.
Top: Sister Bernice Klostermann reads a prayer during a service at the small chapel built in the path of the proposed Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline by the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, a group of Catholic nuns that supports environmental justice, in Columbia, Pa., July 30, 2017. Bottom: A post demarcating the proposed 50-foot-wide easement for the planned Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline near Buck, Pa., on July 17, 2017.
Photo: Charles Mostoller for The Intercept
The Adorers, a small order of Catholic sisters with a commitment to social and environmental justice, first established themselves in the small farming community of Columbia, Pennsylvania, in 1925. There they founded St. Anne’s, a home for the elderly. More recently, they purchased a small forest preserve near their original ministry in Illinois. Beyond the immediate disruption to their land that the pipeline would inflict, the sisters argue that it also promotes fracking, which they consider harmful to the environment.
“Fracking ruins the ground, ruins waterways, ruins the air,” said Sister Bernice Klostermann. “There are future generations coming. We need to re-examine our values and principles.”
Top: The Conestoga River flows near the site where Williams plans to extract water during the construction of the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline in Millersville, Pa., on Aug. 5, 2017. Bottom: Lancaster Against Pipelines activists look at maps showing the path of the proposed Atlantic Sunrise pipeline during a strategy planning session at a farm next to one of Williams’s planned water-extraction sites on the Conestoga River, in Millersville on Aug. 5.
Photo: Charles Mostoller for The Intercept
Williams, for its part, says the nuns willingly chose not to participate in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s review and that the cornfield in question will remain the Adorer’s property and continue to be farmable after the pipeline is installed. They also accuse the Adorers of a double standard because they use natural gas to heat some of their buildings and electricity from power plants that burn natural gas.
“We find it ironic that the Adorers would challenge the value of natural gas infrastructure in the lawsuit, while at the same time promoting the availability and use of natural gas at their St. Anne’s Retirement Community,” Williams said in a written statement.
Mindy Roye owns a trailer park across the street from the Adorers chapel and adjacent to the proposed easement. She is concerned that the drilling will contaminate her drinking water wells. In neighboring Chester County, a number of wells were contaminated during drilling to install Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 natural gas pipeline. According to Roye, she was told it would cost over $25,000 to connect to the municipal water system if her wells are damaged. She said she isn’t in total opposition to the pipeline, but feels that Williams has railroaded the local community and its concerns, especially those residents who own land adjacent to the proposed path.
Top: A sign demarcating Williams-owned land at the southern terminus of the planned Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline near Buck, Pa., on July 17, 2017. Bottom: A working Amish farm that lies in the path of the proposed Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline near Buck on July 17.
Photo: Charles Mostoller for The Intercept
“Instead of coming in and just taking people’s land,” she said, “why don’t say, ‘We’ll pay for hooking you up to city water,’ and then negotiate the use of the land?”
Williams maintains that it went through a lengthy two-year review process, and more than 99 percent of affected landowners have settled with the company, while risks to the environment are minimal.
Lancaster Against Pipelines, a protest group created in 2014, finds any risk to the environment unacceptable. Earlier this year, LAP established an encampment on a plot of land that will be a major drilling site to allow the pipeline to pass under the Conestoga River. They constructed a 25-foot-tall structure directly in the pipeline right of way, which Williams considered a “safety hazard.” Williams spent millions of dollars to buy the entire property from the landowners just to force the protesters off the land.
Undeterred, LAP dispersed to a number of other properties around the area and continues to carry out civil disobedience trainings to prepare for resistance to construction efforts when they begin.
Top: A sign condemning the proposed Atlantic Sunrise pipeline at a farm next to one of Williams’s planned water-extraction sites on the Conestoga River, in Millersville, Pa., Aug. 5, 2017. Bottom: Lancaster Against Pipelines activists gather for a planning session at the farm .
Photo: Charles Mostoller for The Intercept
“We plan on getting arrested,” said Malinda Clatterbuck, a minister and founder of Lancaster Against Pipelines. It’s not that she wants to be arrested, she said, but rather she sees no other choice.
Industry-friendly legislators in the state have introduced new bills in response to the threat of civil disobedience. Citing law enforcement spending associated with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, Scott Martin, the state senator for much of Lancaster County, introduced a bill last week that would make Pennsylvania demonstrators liable for “public safety response costs” if they’re convicted of misdemeanors or felonies. The legislation’s definition of “demonstration” includes “vigils or religious services” that have the primary purpose of “expression of views or grievances” and “draw a crowd or onlookers.”
“The laws are unjust and the law will come out against us because we don’t have the legal right to protect the heath and safety of our communities,” Clatterbuck said. “But the industry has the right to come and exploit us and put us in danger.”
On a recent Sunday afternoon, a few dozen activists gathered for a planning session at one of these farms next to the laconic Conestoga River, from which the state granted Williams permission to draw water for use in horizontal drilling and hydrostatic testing.
The activists, who ranged in age from early 20s to mid-70s, gathered around maps showing the pipeline’s route and proposed drilling locations, trying to determine the best tactics to disrupt or block construction when it begins. Ideas ranged from locking themselves to access gates, to prayer vigils and protest marches.
“While there may be a lockdown of some sort, there’s also going to be a beautiful ceremony happening in that same space, so that way the media can’t paint the picture that we are the bad guys,” said Dylan Carney, 21, who traveled from New Hampshire to join LAP for the summer.
The Adorers also built a small chapel in their field directly in the pipeline’s path. They plan to hold a prayer service there when construction begins. Although she worries what might happen to the elderly residents at St. Anne’s in her absence, Klostermann is also ready to be arrested, if necessary.
“So what if I get arrested?” she asked. “I could be put in jail, but so many others have gone to jail for doing what they believed in. So, who am I to say I couldn’t handle it? But I pray to God every day that we do win this and they don’t take this land from us.”
Top photo: Shadows approach a farm that lies in the path of the proposed Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline near Buck, Pa., on July 17, 2017.
Maybe ask the native peoples of Standing Rock to help out and catch bullets. Your country is absolutely fucked.
Big companies seem to have a licence to violate environmental laws.
See google video BLACKSTONE GROUP’S ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISM about how this real-estate empire illegally burns coal in our residential complex Kips Bay Court in mid-town, Manhattan, NYC, next to children”s school Explore-Discover.
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I am so sad there was no mention at all about this areas first inhabitants- the Native American tribes who lived here for 6,000 years. On the 35 mile, 50 foot wide right- of- way there are 86 state registered sites with others that have not been registered. The Pennsylvania state museum has said that Manor and Conestoga townships are the most archaeologically significant townships in the state, possibly the county, yet nothing is done to protect them. And we seem to forget them. Who will be protecting their graves and sacred prayer spaces from the destruction of the pipeline?
Scott Martin – put him on the shit list with the rest of the fascist god damned fundamentalist republicans that want to finally and forever drive the stake into personal rights and democracy and empower the corporate oligarchy.
Someone urge these folks to build a wind turbine on their property – it helps in 2 ways: it makes the property much more valuable and costly to take and it would reduce their need for gas.
It isn’t our property
I know it’s a small word “if”..it can have a HUGE impact. If the Company does their job correctly and not cut corners in any way keeping safety in mind, these projects would work.No person in their right mind wants the environment damaged, we all have the basic right to clean air and clean water. Most of us want and use electricity and gas too, so what’s the alternative?
Absolutely not!
Lancaster County doesn’t have any problems.
They rolled up a big majority for Donald Trump.
No doubt he will help them.
Probably the other Republicans they voted for will, too.
Seriously? You lump all Pennsylvanians together? as if the rest of us- fight for justice (and our work here) don’t matter at all- we should just get lumped in with the rest? Hmm…
Actually, I was just talking about Lancaster County, not all of Pennsylvania. Please re-read my post. Thank you.
This format is so much more synchronous with readjusting the brain by the way. Laura Poitras is correct about that. It is how how CAD used to be set up long ago in civil engineering before Revit took over.
What a multitalented journalist and photographer. Thank you for your work. It truly appears Sister Bernice Klostermann took the sacred heart of the commons very seriously and never forgot all the roots of Ignatian spirituality. It is so cool that Matthias and the motley crew of river fishing men and women were architects and cabinet makers and multitalented artists from landscapes to chapels in maize fields.
At first glance, the Sunoco drilling looks very responsible. Reading sources like https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2017/07/10/chesco-residents-deal-with-tainted-water-after-sunoco-drills-into-aquifer/ it sounds like the company only uses clay and water as drilling lubricant, that the drilling was done 150 feet underground so that the pipeline could pass under farms with no disruption to activities on the surface between the points where the drilling is done, and they paid for city water costs and did testing when complaints were received. The cloudiness apparently is typical sediment like homeowners get when a neighbor drills a new well.
The problem is that our society suffers poor morale because nobody can trust anyone else can do the right thing. The homeowners really were stuck drinking bottled water, because they assumed (justifiably) that a company would by lying about something or leaving out some crucial information. They really were waiting around for their own private tests of “anything they can think of” because they assumed (justifiably) that a company’s lab would be crooked. It’s not that there’s any reason to think that company or its contractors in particular would be bad — it’s just that the autocratic structure of for-profit corporations and the weak and dishonest enforcement of any rule against them has brought us to this point. In a free society with a better economic system, these problems would be much less distressing and much less expensive for everyone involved.
Guess they shouldn’t have voted for Trump in a landslide.
As an established white community, let’s see how it goes for those Environmental Terrorists?
These greedy thieving wallstreet types dont give a plug nickel about mainsteet. In fact, mainstreet is a target for robbing and defrauding and since their whores in congress work for them, they have been able to subvert the will of the people and dismiss democracy.
major Glen MacDonald who identified the flight terminator module on the craft that hit WTC2.
you can choose your school board but not the US candidates selected by the rulers of US foreign policy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_fp5kaVYhk
except Donald Trump… the fly in the ointment.
Had been looking for country land for a retreat – guess it is good to skip Pennsylvania.
This area looks quite pricey and retreat is loneliness, not always as welcoming as the surroundings, known people to go back!