Nancy Sorrells and Sarah Francisco

00:03 Good afternoon. I'm Nancy. Sorrells. I'm 62 years old and today is Tuesday, June 8th, 2021. And we are in Waynesboro Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley and I am here speaking with Sarah Francisco, who is a friend, and a colleague in the story that you're going to hear from us.

00:23 I'm Sarah Francisco. I'm 41. Today is June 8th, Tuesday, June 8th, 2021, and we're here in Waynesboro, Virginia. And I'm speaking with Nancy sorrells, a friend, and colleague of many years in. And we're going to talk about the successful effort to stop the Atlantic coast pipeline.

00:50 So Nancy, of course, as you know, I grew up on a farm in Augusta County south of Stanton here in the Shenandoah Valley and I've also been an attorney with the southern environmental law Center since 2002.

01:07 I currently head up our Virginia office at SLC. And then in my personal life. I'm also a member of the board of the alliance for the Shenandoah Valley.

01:19 I think you and I were involved in the effort to stop the Atlantic coast pipeline from the first day that we heard about it, and this 42in, large-diameter high pressure. Natural. Gas pipeline was proposed in 2014. It would have run from West Virginia, through Virginia and into North Carolina. It was a project primarily of Dominion Energy and Duke Energy and the purpose was to bring natural gas to gas-fired power plants. It's important to know that this pipeline was not proposed to serve the natural gas needs of the communities, that it was passing through.

02:00 That's correct. I'm Nancy. And it's Sarah said, we're both from Augusta County. I am actually, the 4th generation to not be born in this area. But to wind up here and realize that there's no place better than the Shenandoah Valley in Augusta County. And so, I've lived here since I was 13 and I have no plans to ever leave in 62 years old now and this and I do a lot of outdoor, writing conservation, hiking biking and them. And then in the late nineties, I got involved in a an ill-advised land, use issue in my community that sort of morphed into some, how many being elected to the Augusta County Board of Supervisors. Which in Virginia, is the, the, the closest the lowest level, but the most and

03:00 In my opinion of local governments, cuz it's where the rubber meets the road with the community. And I served eight years On The Board of Supervisors and had been off for just a couple years. When word of this pipeline, coming through our community hit. And these were, these are my constituents. The people that I had served for the last eight years and an in a community that I loved. And this was just her at first, but this was going to come through that only was it a 42 inch, high pressure natural, gas pipeline, but it was going to come through an area that nobody in the United States has ever tried to run a pipeline of this size. Before mountainous, the Allegheny Mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains, steep terrain, with forests that

03:52 Are are wet which means they have parental floods at times and through Farm, beautiful pristine farmland. And and and we're in the area. That's the headwaters of the James in the Shenandoah River. So a very important area that that was going to be deeply impacted. The other thing, is that a word that we learned very quickly was karst. This area is a car stereo, which means that we were an inland sea and all those little creatures died and built up Limestone at the bottom of the sea, and I'm, and that limestone's very soluble which means that when it rains water comes through the caverns and sinkholes and things like that. And it can be very unstable. And when you put a high pressure pipe line through that, you can have a lot of tragic things that impact the water very deeply

04:40 Nancy. We learned so much about the risks of his project as we went along. But what what do you most remember? From those early days, right after the pipeline was first proposed back in the late spring or early summer of 2014. What stands out to you? What I remember first is I was away and it out of writers conference in Texas. When I started in this was May of 2014. And I started hearing a lot of email like seeing a lot of e-mails back and forth and I'm like, what is his natural gas pipeline. What is this? I'm going to just ignore this. Do I get home and get home and if people were just up in arms because they had they didn't know anything about it and they got letters in the mail. It said, dominionenergy.com onto your property, whether you give us permission. And we're going to survey because we're going to fight for the pipeline through your property. And there's really not anything you can do about it. So, we started organizing quickly, sharing information, had some Community meetings and, and

05:41 And I think you were involved in a lot of those early early meetings. What do you remember about? Some of that will witness me on a lot of different levels than the initial route of the pipeline was going about a mile from the farm where my father has lived his whole life, where he grew up, where I grew up Nessa. You remember being at that meeting, you know, at our farm house around our dining room table with folks, from that part of Augusta County for the middle, Brook area, from folks who were local conservation leaders and local citizens, coming together to say, what can we do to have our voices in our concerns heard. And, and that meeting really was the beginning of the organization that became the Augusta County Alliance. So it was

06:35 Personally and intense time, but then,

06:41 In my work at the southern environmental law Center. I was leaving our national forest Protection work at that time and we had been involved in this effort for many years to working very closely with local groups and local citizens to convince the u.s. Forest service, not to open up the doors. Washington National Forest for fracking you and I work together in that effort. A lot of the folks over at that meeting at our farm house had been involved in Forest protection and they were folks that I had worked with in different ways over the years and and new and

07:15 We put all of this effort into protecting this exceptional National Forest. That is the the backdrop to so many beautiful places in the Shenandoah, Valley is such an important resource for us and Along Comes This pipeline. It just felt like the pipeline was falling out of the sky and it was proposed right on top of this National Forest week. We ended up being successful in that effort in the forest service made. An excellent decision not to open up the national forest for gas drilling and fracking but that was several months into the pipeline fight. So it was just a very intense and his time, right? All you all sudden. We were already fighting the fracking and then we had this double double a battle on our hands with with the pipeline. And that the other thing that that resonated with our communities, with the fracking issue and then with the pipeline, which was going to carry that fracked gas in areas that where fracking was, was our water and that,

08:15 Something that they crossed all spectrums of are communicated matter. What political party you were, when you conservative or liberal you, you drink water and you needed water for your businesses and for your home in for your farm and so, so it resonated with everybody and we're not stupid and and we care deeply about those things that that are rooted in our place in the, in our water. And so we we had a meeting at the local fire house and that morphed into the meeting around the dining room table at your father's house and we began organizing. And we'd already as you said, we'd already had these networks of organization in place me with the Board of Supervisors and then the fracking effort with some Farm protection and preservation effort.

09:05 So we were already turned on on how to how to network and we just

09:11 Shifted our resources to this fight and and quickly formed. And in our area, this was happening in a lot of communities in our region cuz we were really the ground zero for the fight.

09:25 Was happening around, kitchen tables, and dining room tables and fire houses in in are you can't counties that were close by but we deliberately chose the name of the Augusta County alliance with the county. And we, we knew that we weren't. This was a fairly conservative area. We weren't tree-huggers as such we weren't doing it just because you know, we wanted me to have a place in the forest. We were doing this because we believed in our place in what was right and what was right and what was wrong. And so and we were United in that across across, you know, age economics, politics. And so we became the Augusta County Alliance and them and that stuck with us. We were United all the way through to the end.

10:12 Missing You made a really important point. I think about allies from the mountain counties working together, you know, the Nelson County, Augusta County Highland County and then Bath County the mountain counties and the local organizations based in those counties really communicated with one another and organized and shared information and help one another from the very beginning and that really carried throughout the whole six years that we were taking on this project came pretty close people that we never would have probably interacted with her, even knew existed, suddenly became our friends across across this fight, and we we did things quickly with chipped in with everybody have a skillset. Somebody knew how to make bumper stickers and I still see the bumper stickers. No Pipeline on cars as I passed them on the streets here and we made up signs and there's signs have gone Across. The Nation will have seen those signs.

11:12 Jasper County alliance with our website. No pipeline symbol on it. I seen it in in, on AP articles and photographs from across the country, including like Alaska, Texas and places like that. We even had tell us a little bit about our pipeline Anthem, as you said, everyone brought their skills and talents to this and our wonderful friends, Robin and Linda Williams. The wonderful musicians, they really tapped into that tradition of protest songs and of songs that inspire people to come together and to rise up, no matter what the odds and they wrote a song in the fall of 2014.

12:02 Cold, we don't want your pipeline and

12:06 Refrain, we are going to put a stop sign on Dominion's pipeline.

12:13 Go tell your neighbors. Go tell your friends and let you know. In those few lines that really struck a chord literally and figuratively with what we're trying to do because this is not a community where people are really put a lot of yard signs in their front yards and go out to a lot of meetings and March around. This is this is just not the kind of community, but we had to inspire people to say as Robin and Linda did in that great song and nothing is done as long as we stand up. And, and that was so, such an important Anthem and was so inspiring at both high points and low points to, to, really come back to that song and that Touchstone throughout this fight, right? And that was the interesting thing was that so

13:05 Or empty our listeners, they might recognize Robin and Linda from Prairie Home Companion because they were regulars on that show for many years. But the pipeline, the original route of the pipeline was going to come yards from their property. So this was really based in community support and Community effort. They stepped out in their front yard with their instruments. And that's the one thing that I think about when we when we talked about that song is

13:37 Nancy. Maybe you can can share a little bit about what you were thinking about at the time just in terms of what we were, what we were up against. Yeah. It was it was it was overwhelming the enormity of it. I'm Dominion. Dominion is one of the biggest energy Utilities in in the country. Certainly the biggest east of the Mississippi as far as from the very beginning. This was a David and Goliath fight and one of the the earliest newspaper articles about this reference David and Goliath. We turned out, several hundred people at a meeting.

14:21 Probably in June June or July. It was the summer of 2014 going to the Board of Supervisors, trying to get answers from Dominion about what was going to happen to their property, into their homes, and their community. And and the newspaper wrote an article and said it was nice of the people turned out. They should expect answers, but they didn't expect that. They're going to get any any solutions that Dominion. This is a done deal and it surely is a david-and-goliath except for in this case. David doesn't even have a stone to throw and end. So that resonated with us several years into a fight. I was at a local store and they have a big Ben out of a Big Ben books that they give away. And if you want to pick one up and take it home and right on top of it was a wolf children's book and it was David and Goliath and I picked it up and I carried it with me and I brought it out and I talked, you know, time and again to say, you know, this is not a done deal. We had to keep

15:21 Telling everybody don't give up. You may not think you're being listened to but don't give up we have right on our side and we're going to keep fighting and so and so we didn't and guess what? That newspaper article, that opinion piece was wrong. We found some stones and we won the fight. We did, we did.

15:43 Do you do you remember how we had to constantly shipped are our strategy and constantly update our information? Particularly in the early. I do like it was like we were on the phone and and getting our heads together like everyday, because Dominion shifted the route they would we would we would bring up some point and they would find a way around that that pointer that, that legal issue. There are many many times. We thought this is going to be the one that that stops IT and if they found a way to it to keep going, we thought early on the day route came through over send on mountain and there were some endangered species that were being threatened. And and the force service actually told them, they couldn't go over that, they couldn't take that route and this is it more people made the

16:43 Longer and all that did is bring more allies on to our side. And it really show that there was no good route through this region. This wasn't of a problem that can really be fixed by adjusting the route. This whole region was totally inappropriate for a project like this and that that was a reality. That the companies did not want to confront, right? I don't think Dominion had never had had never come up against opposition before they had. They were a corporate bully. Is the right word. They were sure of what they were going to do. They had planned this this was going to make money for them. And that's the way it was going to be in. Then from the ten thousand foot perspective. They drew a line from West Virginia through Virginia all the way down to almost South Carolina and that was their route and they were going to stick to it and then when you get boots on the ground and you see see the variations that

17:41 That needed to happen to avoid someone septic field or to avoid a sinkhole. They, they were so confident in their ability to always get done what they wanted on a date. They had no compassion for for making things, right? Or forgetting down on the ground and working with the community to, to move the route a few feet. So it wouldn't go through a family septic field and then they would have to leave their home because there was no place to put an ultimate septic field 8, they didn't budge an inch. There was no compassion and there's and so as a consequence, they they built up a level of of phone.

18:27 Community discuss with them. Really is the best way to put it in, and they also felt like they that's this is what they want to do. And, you know, the the laws that everybody else had to follow, didn't necessarily apply to them and they wanted to make the route for this way. It didn't really matter if that was going to have a stream Crossing that would impact and endangered species. Our water supply like the city of Stanton. And in the end. I think that that is what he came there downfall. As they, they created a lot of self-inflicted wounds that, that ran up the costs and delayed it in. And it was, it was entirely self-inflicted.

19:12 So, you know.

19:15 Do you remember? Do you remember what kind of strategy? How did you think that that you were going to deal with this at on a legal perspective. Did you think you had a chance to grade question? I think you're talking about the early days of this Saga.

19:33 You know, there was

19:36 I often felt like there was just tremendous both personal and professional pressure and I was pulled in a lot of different directions. Because in in our legal work, what we are learning is that the laws are heavily tilted in favour of pipeline developers, and we learned that the process itself is fundamentally unfair. So that pipeline construction, typically starts very quickly and it is

20:07 There are certain procedural tricks that are used to keep pipeline Challengers from having their day in court and their opportunity for that fair hearing before the project starts, go in the ground. And so that's what we knew. We were up against we had we learned that as far as we could ever find out know your citizen citizen driven, legal opposition has ever stopped a pipeline before and at the same time, there was this barrage of calls and emails and request for help. And I think people naturally tend to turn to attorneys for immediate answers and for commitments to help and we will you take this case and we were still learning about natural gas pipelines and what the laws are butterfly and what the opportunities are for review of environmental and Community impact, what the process even is for concerns to be raised. And so,

21:07 That was a very, very hectic time from that from that standpoint. And you know Nancy, I'm sure this was the case for you for six years. This was the Atlantic coast pipeline was the thing. People wanted to talk to me about everyone at home. Everyone in the Shenandoah Valley that I talk to. That was the first thing. What's the status? What's going on? Are you going to stop it? And as the project seemed to continue to advance and a lot of the opposition, you know, we were working very hard, but there was this long. We were just kind of bouncing off of this. Seemingly Invincible are around this project. And, you know, people then started asking you what was going on and telling you, they thought that you would lose.

21:56 And so that was just that was a challenging.

22:00 Dynamic pressure, cooker, all the time and the community we were fighting what Dominion was doing, but we were also educating the community and and letting them know because of the beginning, know we none of us knew what a pipeline but this was about and on the surface. I mean, do Minions spawn a very the story that this was going to bring economic prosperity to the community. And don't worry about if you blow up, perhaps or money that's going to come in from the jobs and the other jobs at a temporary, of course, and the the taxes that a role in will just make it all. Okay, until we had to educate people that this project wasn't needed to turn on the lights and that they were going to be far more negative impacts than there were positive outcomes from it. And

23:00 And that they were helpless, you know, they felt powerless, but that we had to tell him that we they weren't powerless that we can help armor them. And so, you know, it was it was constant was every day. And even, you know, in your dreams about it and people would come up gradually, I would say the beginning, the community was pretty split. Maybe this is a good thing and across all walks of life. People would come up to you, and it was, it was, it was the opening greeting in every conversation. Probably for you, too. And people would say, who I never would have thought would be against this. They would say, you know, keep up the good fight. Thanks for the fight. I don't think you're going to win, but thanks for sticking up for the community. So, intense that even if we would leave the area and go on vacation, a friend of mine, and I go up to New York City every year at Christmas time, and one of the things we do would look at the Christmas lights, and

24:00 Go visit Santa Claus at Macy's and so is Santa asking what you want for Christmas. And I asked him if he could stop a natural gas pipeline that I was fighting and and Santa said that he would do it. So I figured if we have Santa on our side we we were going to win eventually.

24:19 So, didn't we just did?

24:24 Did you ever think that we might not win?

24:27 There were certainly some some dark times back in.

24:34 Late 2017, early 2018, permit after permit. After permit, was being issued for this project. And you know what? That point we were already years into this fight. We had to try to get these permits reconsidered. We try to redirect this project that had been successful, and we were really left with no choice, but to challenge these deeply flawed permits in court.

25:01 But there was a huge amount of pressure on the legal team at that point. And you know, we never would have stopped this project if it weren't for the citizen and Grassroots efforts at that particular moment, though.

25:17 If the legal cases didn't get this Project's, impacts the drawing board, there wasn't going to be any more time to continue to bring out the facts about this project and it, it often just felt like so many people were looking to the legal team. We were having to bring multiple cases at once. All of these permits, were being issued at the same time in this Cascade. We had to, we wanted to challenge them and they were improper and needed to be challenged me to do all of that simultaneously, you know, and and during that time, you know, our office or Virginia offices based in Charlottesville, walking around downtown Charlottesville, you know, when the railroad railroad cars go by, you could see the Atlantic coast pipe line segments going by on the railroad cars and tree felling, in the path of the pipeline started, some of the pipeline started going in the ground over in West Virginia. If it was very real and very scary at that time.

26:17 That's exactly right. Exactly right from the very beginning was Death By A Thousand Cuts. And so we knew we had to keep being a double and when they got one permit on something else and we were getting phone calls from landowners who are feeling up the menu was taking landowners the court in preparation for taking their land of eminent domain. So, they were being forced to sign easements. And at one point, the majority of the easements have been fine people. And the permits are being issued, and there was one point just like you said, about the fight. There was one point on Interstate 81. I had a flat tire and I was sitting at the rest area waiting for Triple-A to come and I sat there and it was a time. When Dominion was transporting, it's typing. It was distinctive. It was green. It was a certain size.

27:17 I was going to go and I sat there for about an hour waiting for AAA and washing truck after Truck. Fill the pipe going toward going toward the construction zone, and it was incredibly depressing, but we couldn't let the people that we were working with.

27:37 I think those thoughts. And so when we sent out.

27:41 Augusta County Alliance letters talking to people when we sent out a blast trying to Rally people to things, ask him to write letters contact her. A representative or show up in a meeting. We always ended it with this pipeline is not a done deal. Its pipelines, not in her. Even had stickers on our on our snail mail Communications that we sent out to people. We had stickers made up said, this pipeline is not a done deal and stuck them on the envelope. I'm just to keep people spirits up and to think that we were going to, we're going to do this Nancy. What, what got you do that time? What were some of the the bright spots during those dark times in those times? I think that we stayed on message and that the community. I mean the community gets all the credit for it. They showed up and was a little bit of a cast of thousands and they showed

28:41 When we said write a letter, they even though they written ten letters already, they wrote a letter and they took pictures and they went out with video cameras. If there was flooding that was happening on the proposed route. I took a took movies of it and sent it and recorded it and just in and we had a couple of really important things that happened. That just made us think that there might be a little crack in the armor. We

29:12 In 2017. We had a corn planting and we joined forces with the

29:23 Nebraska Keystone XL pipeline fight, the cowboy and Indian Alliance out there. I had joined two groups that traditionally weren't allies of each other, the Cowboys and the Indians. And they, they had already been fighting the Keystone XL pipeline for a long time. And and they

29:45 They have these sacred seeds corn seeds that had been lost for a hundred years if they had read germinated and we're planting them in the path of the Keystone Pipeline s seeds of resistance and we make contact with them and they came and we planted seeds of resistance in the fact of the Atlantic coast Pipeline and how much does a similar fight that still ongoing down in in a little bit further south of of the Atlantic coast Pipeline and in West Virginia to they planted the seeds of resistance and the empowerment of putting a seed in the ground and seeing that has come together and grow their seeds while we had a plane flying with a banner. That said, plant corn, not pipelines, was pretty incredible.

30:34 So so there were beginning of that. The other big thing was to Churchville pipe yard. It was so important. That was huge and 18 are the minion say, we're going to set up a pipe yard and Industrial workspace to start building this pipe and putting it in the ground. And we had consecutive meetings at the Augusta County Board of zoning appeals and we turned out hundreds of people in January and February. And finally, a decision was made in March and Dominion was told for the first time for the first time in four years. They were told no, the bza stood up and said we're listening to the people. This is wrong and no, and that

31:22 Started us on the right path. I think that was a huge local community, safety concern. That was it when they were flooding issues in traffic issues that they were protecting the community against and standing up and doing their job. And it was, it was so important and nothing too many was taken aback. And after that,

31:45 Things started shifting. Y'all had some huge, talk about your big wins in court. Yeah. That was that was just absolutely critical. I mean when I think about getting through. You know, fur

31:59 Certainly for the legal team, the persistence. And the spirit of the of our clients. We were privileged to represent 15, fantastic organization throughout this fight. And the the Persistence of are the local organizations in the local community was just always so inspiring. And so that was always motivating even when when things felt really difficult, but a really important when for us, and I'm in a big turning point, I think was winning that first Court ruling in May of 2018, 5 days after oral argument in the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, the court.

32:45 Throughout one of the required permits for the pipeline and

32:50 It was incredibly moving for me. I mean, I went home to the farm that you need so that I could tell my parents about it in person, you know, and give them the news and just the fact that Justice was being done.

33:07 At long last with incredibly moving and for me, you know, I've spent my, I've spent my life. Am I? My work in life is based on the belief that the courts are the ultimate backstop in the ultimate equalizer and then at the end of the day, the facts and the law will prevail. And there was a long time in this fight before we were able to to have that day in court, would we ended up having many days in court, but there was a long time in this fight where I felt like that wouldn't be the case and in the facts and the law did carry the day and that was proved to be true in the face of a project that often until that moment. Just looked

33:51 Invincible. It was a huge shot in the arm for for us and for everybody that was involved in the spite, but there were a lot of ups and downs and for the we weren't able to stop construction right away, even though the pipeline had lost a required permit. There was a brief alten Construction in the summer and then permits were quickly, reissued and construction started again, and it wasn't until we won another important Court ruling in December, 2018. That construction would was stopping one another case shortly after that, that helped solidify and extend that halted Construction.

34:36 And when I think back on it, you know, we didn't know at the time that can back in December of 2018. We didn't know the construction would never

34:46 Resume, but it was, it was also around that time that.

34:54 Let's see. It was really the winter. I think of 2019 that.

35:00 The opposition started to really be taken seriously and news articles, finally started to cover the idea that the Atlantic coast pipeline wouldn't might not be built as a realistic possibility. And as a valid point of view, that needed to be covered in the newspaper. Article started calling it, The imperiled that that was the, the cracks were there and then, you know, then we could we did the we were at the Supreme Court which just as amazing to think about, we started from that dining room table and wound up in the Supreme Court. Not necessarily something we wanted to do, but something amazing. And then

35:45 You want to talk about July 5th of 2020? Sure, you know.

35:54 Yeah sure. We were at that time. We've been at the Supreme Court in the winter. And then as we move through 2020, we were in the middle of this, the awful coronavirus pandemic. I have continued to see my mother. I was at her house and stay and we were sitting down to a late lunch and Greg Beaufort, my colleague. Greg Beaufort who led the SCLC legal team throughout this whole Saga called me with the news that dominion and Duke and decided to cancel the pipeline. And I was just

36:30 I was overwhelmed with gratitude for our clients and for the whole community that just refused to back down and gratitude for my colleagues. I mean for attorneys literally did Jumpin Jacks at to keep himself awake, while writing briefs all night and over the weekend. It was just overwhelming. You find out the real. I wish it was July 5th, and I was, I was actually taking a nap on the couch. My brother's everybody was behind going out on the lake, but me, and I got a phone call from Kate. And then immediately after that, from Greg saying, the minions, pull the plug on it. And, and, and it was like having a dream and, and then I realized know, as a historian. I think I said, but I'm going to say it was the Fourth of July weekend. It's the best Fourth of July since 1776. So I mean, it just it's still hard and in the small bit of light in the middle of

37:30 Find it just it was it was amazing. And you know, I think you know, it it confirms what we knew that the Arc of History does move for justice and people should never go up and give it people should never give up never give up that. That in a week. We can David come and eat the buyer and and it really has elevated this community. So it's got to switch Tucson's and now, you know as the the alliance of the Shenandoah Valley, we know that we have a special place and we know what we have to do to make sure it's here for the next Generation. I think that that sells of encouragement and empowerment for everybody who cares about the future of this region, the Shenandoah Valley Virginia or their own home place those around the country that should be a source of of inspiration and strength. And and for me, I think it just really shows what is possible when you have

38:32 When you have, when people come together around a sense of place and a sense of their community and take a stand and refuse to give up and enter able to combine that with, with the effect of the law. Is that equalizer that I was talking about. It, it shows what's possible and it's it's really

38:56 I think it continues to inspire the folks who've been involved in this effort, but I hope to inspire others whether to fight a project.

39:08 Like this or even another kind of project. I think it's changed the Dynamics of projects like this, and we still have a fight with the Mountain, Valley pipeline to south of us. Hopefully, we all need to get behind them, but we know we know how

39:23 To fight it. And we know that the power of the people with the law behind them and can win and so, hopefully the next fight will be easier.

39:33 I hope so, too.