Advocates are applauding the Washington, D.C., Public Service Commission's decision to pause a Washington Gas infrastructure rebuild known as Project Pipes.

The project began in 2014 as a 40-year plan to replace all the District's aging natural gas infrastructure, at a projected cost to ratepayers of $4.5 billion. The project is nearing the end of Phase 2 but last Tuesday the commission voted to put a Washington Gas request for a $57 million extension of the phase on hold. The commission cited concerns about the cost and the company's inability to reduce the number of leaks.

Tim Oberleiton, senior attorney for the nonprofit Earthjustice, said the approach of replacing all the gas infrastructure distracts from what he believes is the main problem.

"Washington Gas has incurred millions of dollars in penalties for failing to meet agreed-upon leak-reduction targets," Oberleiton pointed out. "Despite spending hundreds of millions of ratepayer dollars on this program, leaks are not moving down in a meaningful way. In fact, last year in D.C., the Beyond Gas campaign measured leaks across the city [and] found hundreds of active leaks across all eight wards."

In a statement to Public News Service, Canadian-owned AltaGas, parent company of Washington Gas, said Project Pipes targets the riskiest leak-prone pipes in the system.

The commission requested additional information from Washington Gas including data on the number of miles of pipe replaced in years past and associated repair costs, as well as the number of leak repairs conducted in past years. The request seeks performance metrics on each phase of the project, as well as data going back to 2005, 9 years prior to the start of Project Pipes.

The commission did not weigh in on the prospects for Phase 3 of the project, but advocates say Project Pipes runs counter to the city's climate goals, including a pledge to be carbon-neutral by 2045, which anticipated continual movement away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources for homes.

Oberleiton argued committing billions to new gas infrastructure will create an incentive to keep using a technology known to contribute to climate change. He noted a number of other cities have cut spending for similar projects or delayed them.

"In Illinois, the Illinois Commerce Commission, which is the PSC out there, put a halt on any and all activities in this regard, citing the cost overruns and climate risks," Oberleiton pointed out.

Community groups are joining the opposition. In November, the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission representing Glover Park and Cathedral Heights passed a resolution opposing funding for Phase 3 and calling on the Public Service Commission to revise the project to focus on existing leaks and scaling new investment to match the city's energy and climate goals.

Advocates often refer to natural gas as methane, which is its primary component. As a greenhouse gas, methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. In homes, research shows the use of methane gas for cooking contributes to poor air quality and releases toxic compounds into the air including known carcinogens such as benzene.

Naomi Cohen-Shields, D.C. campaign manager for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said use of the term "natural gas" amounts to greenwashing by the gas industry.

"It's putting this idea into our heads that this is a clean form of energy that we can trust, that it's something that is safe to have in our homes, that it's better for the environment," Cohen-Shield explained. "We're beginning to dismantle that as the science is pointing more and more clearly to the fact that fracked gas, methane gas, is not a clean source of energy, that it's extremely harmful for the planet and also for people's health when it's burned in their homes."

Washington D.C. residents are pushing back on a plan to build out existing fossil fuel infrastructure.

Washington Gas' $12 billion Project Pipes plan called for upgrading existing infrastructure throughout the nation's capital despite the district's 2045 carbon neutrality goals. Environmentalists worry this will waste ratepayer's money and not address ongoing gas leaks.

Naomi Cohen-Shields, D.C. campaign manager for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said what Washington Gas is doing follows a wider national trend.

"We are seeing things like accelerated pipe replacement programs, that's what Project Pipes is," Cohen-Shields explained. "There are examples of that popping up across the country. Again, it's part of a playbook. Things like building out new gas plants like Dominion is trying to do or new pipelines, again part of the playbook."

Virginia's Dominion Energy is moving forward with a natural gas plant in Chesterfield despite residents' objections and state climate goals. In a statement, Washington Gas said it supports the District's climate goals and believes residents will be best served by a fuel-neutral approach to decarbonization. The company is pledging to help D.C. policymakers achieve the 2030 climate goals.

Washington Gas' parent company, Alta Gas, faced similar community resistance.

Cheryl Maloney, member of the Mi'kmaq Nation in Nova Scotia and other residents pushed back when the company applied to build up its methane gas infrastructure without much notice. She said Washington Gas' aged company charter should not be considered untouchable.

"They have a 1800-and-something charter that giving them rights to sell oil and gas in perpetuity, so everyone thinks they have this everlasting right," Maloney emphasized. "But it doesn't consider, do the people that hold the money have to spend it on the oil and gas infrastructure?"

The public certainly should not have to, Maloney argued, and she feels ratepayers should have more say in what utility companies invest in. She contended Washington Gas' plan is not a great deal for ratepayers who lose out on alternative clean energy options. New methane gas pipes usually last 40 to 45 years, but she added they will have shortened life spans due to the district's climate goals.

A federal court judge in Montana blocked a large project which would have logged or clear-cut more than 10,000 acres of old-growth forest and threatened an iconic bird nesting in the Lewis and Clark National Forest.

In addition to logging 16 square miles, the project would have bulldozed 40 miles of new logging roads into the Little Belt Mountains.

Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said the decision also protects the Northern Goshawk, an old-growth-dependent species which has declined 47% in the last few years. He pointed out the bird has been under constant threat of clear-cut, which Garrity noted allows competitor species to drive it out.

"Even though they're a fairly big bird, they can fly through very tiny openings by pulling their wings in, and they can make very sharp turns," Garrity explained. "If you accidentally come close to a goshawk nest, they are very protective of their nest and they will attack people with their talons and poke out their eyes."

Garrity emphasized the U.S. Forest Service is required by its own rules to tell the public if the goshawk population declines by 10%, and did not. The Forest Service contended the Horsefly project, as it is known, would not affect the goshawk population but its own numbers showed the drastic decline in nesting sites and population.

It is one in a series of lawsuits filed by a coalition of environmental advocates, including the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, to protect species habitat. Garrity stressed the Horsefly ruling is important for the goshawk but the threats do not stop there.

"It's also important for other mature and old growth forest-dependent species, such as pine martin, lynx and forest birds," Garrity outlined. "Which are all in decline."

The court dismissed other parts of the case, including claims roads would interfere with grizzly bear habitat and threaten the elk population.

Conservation groups are circulating a petition asking the feds to give "America the Beautiful National Parks and Recreation Lands" passes to new citizens at their naturalization ceremony. Members of the group GreenLatinos have met with multiple federal agencies to pitch the idea.

Louis Medina, communications and philanthropy director with the nonprofit Friends of the Inyo, said it would make a great "Welcome to America" gift.

"It would be a great way of giving them the best that America has to offer. It could instill greater patriotism and pride, and it could create new allies in the environmental movement," Medina contended.

The pass normally costs $80 per year and gets one car with up to four adults into all national parks and monuments. Last year, more than 878,000 people became U.S. citizens.

The group also wants to start holding naturalization ceremonies at sites on public lands. And they'd like to reverse the trend of national parks going "cashless," as they have at Yosemite and Death Valley.

Medina added parks may save money by requiring everyone to pay by card, but it risks turning people away who don't have credit cards or mobile payment apps.

"For communities of color and immigrant communities that already are having issues in accessing our national parks, because of costs, because of distance, or because of lack of familiarity, then cashless entry creates yet another barrier," he continued.

The petition currently sports more than 900 signatures and is available on the GreenLatinos website.


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