On Aug. 9, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, released its first full report in eight years, and the news is dire. Not only is the planet heating up dangerously, but the pace is accelerating. Climate-fueled disasters are occurring more and more frequently. The report lays out four scenarios for what we might expect by 2100, based on what kind of action the world takes, or doesn’t.
On the same day the IPCC report was released, 95 water protectors and land defenders walked onto a construction site of the Mountain Valley pipeline in Virginia. The group had driven three hours in the middle of the night from their training camp in West Virginia. While the fracked gas pipeline that runs for 303 miles from northern West Virginia to Southern Virginia is mostly built, it still lacks permits for many of the stream crossings it needs to complete construction.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Andy Hinz, one of ten people who locked down on the site and were arrested. He and seven others were charged with two misdemeanors, while two others were charged with felonies for no known reason. Hinz worked 25 years for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, the agency that approves almost all interstate pipeline permits, before becoming a climate activist. Here he discusses the Virginia action, his view of the climate crisis and what he hopes will motivate others to become active on the issue.
ANDY HINZ: So, it was a worksite in Virginia where they were laying pipe. That particular junction was a stream crossing in Virginia. It was actually pretty close to the Yellow Finch tree sits. I was locked down – there were two wooden structures – a yellow tree finch, and I was locked down in the middle of that, and that was very cool – and a candy darter, the two endangered species that people are concerned about. And then five people were locked down to equipment. Everybody walked onto the site at about 7 in the morning, after our three-hour drive. People held the space with us – everybody who wasn’t locked down – for awhile, until a large police contingent got there after a little while. So they walked back out and then were along the highway near the construction site and were continuing to chant and sing, but it was cool because we could hear them the whole time and they were on a highway, so I think they got a lot of exposure.
MELINDA TUHUS: Andy Hinz, why did you participate in this action?
ANDY HINZ: Because (sigh), so many reasons. The fracked gas is not needed locally so it’s something that we don’t even need. It’s destructive to streambeds and mountain slopes and just very environmentally destructive in and of itself. I mean if it were just a pipeline, not even carrying fracked gas, it would be destructive.
And it’s going to pose a risk because based on the way they did some of slopes, it’s going to be at high risk for some kind of catastrophic failure if it ever gets completed. And then of course you add on top of that the climate risk, in addition to the local environmental damage, the amount of greenhouse gases it’s going to release is just not acceptable. It’s a huge pipeline. It’s massive and as we heard yesterday in the IPCC report, it’s crazy for us to be doing it.
And then on top of that, the local community – the ones who are informed about its risks – don’t want it, as well as many, many landowners don’t want it. So there’s really broad support against the pipeline. And now you have the Mountain Valley Pipeline doing bullshit like getting carbon offsets to try and put some kind of greenwash on the project, and it’s just ridiculous. And the EPA itself said it shouldn’t be built because of the stream crossings and the impacts, which haven’t even been reasonably studied.
MELINDA TUHUS: I happen to know that you’ve been making “good trouble” in several places around the country, and have three court cases outstanding for this kind of nonviolent direct action. What motivates you to that level of commitment?
ANDY HINZ: I think the situation is that bad. I think we all need, whatever we’re doing, ratchet it up a notch and do more. We’re really facing the loss of so much life on this planet, and even as we speak, right now in this moment, what we have done is killing life on this planet, right now as we speak in this very second. And all we can do now is lessen the amount of death and destruction that we have created.
One of the people that I was locked down with was a retired Air Force officer who lives in Virginia. You know when you’ve got an ex-FERC person and an ex-Air Force person locked down to equipment in Virginia, hopefully that will be a motivator. It was his first time being arrested or doing an action like this. It wasn’t easy for him because I was with him and saw him processing and going through it. People like this person from Richmond, who it was a first time for, we need more people like that. I mean we need everybody. We need people who don’t have the money and the time to take action like we did, to take some action, whatever it might be – whether it’s signing a petition or a letter or donating or supporting people. But he talked about how it was the first time for him, and he felt it was important for him to be there because he had the means and the privilege to be there and many, many people who would have liked to be there and who feel as strongly and passionate and as motivated as both of us who were there — but just simply can’t be there.
Learn more about Appalachians Against Pipelines at arminarm4climate.org and on Facebook at facebook.com/appalachiansagainstpipelines.
