To: Governor Ralph Northam
People Over Pipelines: Stop Taking Our Land to Make Companies Rich
In the cradle of democracy, the state of Virginia, citizens are having their property rights trampled in favor of corporate profits. Corporations building the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are corrupting the concept of "public good," using eminent domain to seize private land to build unnecessary gas pipelines, reducing family farms to blast zones, destroying legacies intended for the next generation, and destroying local businesses. It's time to stand up for Virginians and protect the people you were elected to represent!
Why is this important?
It is totally jaw dropping that a private company can, with no credible evidence of "public good," march into the lives of everyday Americans and take our land by force. That's what happened to our family, to property we hoped to leave to our children as our legacy. Instead, it is about to seized by a private company and reduced to rubble. And this is happening all over the country, from Transmountain in the West to Standing Rock in the Dakotas to these pipeline in the south east. Don't think it can't happen to you. It can. And what happens in Virginia will either protect citizens or embolden private companies to do this again to more everyday Americans, usually people who are not white, are poor or they don't think will fight back. We have to stand together!