Group sues over N.C. hog-to-gas project’s effects on people of color

BIOGAS: An environmental group files a complaint with federal regulators alleging that North Carolina’s issuing of biogas permits to four hog farms will disproportionately harm communities of color in the surrounding area. (Carolina Public Press)

PIPELINES:
• Environmentalists pressing a Virginia water board to deny certification to the Mountain Valley Pipeline are joined by social justice advocates voicing concerns about the effects of a pipeline compressor station on a nearby African American community. (WVTF)
• Facebook ignores Mountain Valley Pipeline’s request to reveal the identities of the anonymous creators of the Appalachians Against Pipelines page to protest and resist the pipeline’s construction. (Roanoke Times)
• West Virginia landowners who negotiated easements with the now cancelled Atlantic Coast Pipeline worry that the land might be used for a future pipeline or other project. (Mountain State Spotlight)
• An Oklahoma city pursues mediation and may eventually go to a jury trial to settle an eminent domain dispute rather than pay a landowner $2.8 million to acquire an easement for a water pipeline, saying the land is worth less now that a solar farm has canceled its lease. (Enid News & Eagle)

COAL: Some policy analysts predict West Virginia’s rising electricity rates will get worse as U.S. Sen. Joe Machin strips clean-energy provisions from a federal spending bill. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

SOLAR:
• Georgia officials break ground on a 250 MW solar farm that will provide power to electric cooperatives and to an electric utility for a Facebook data center. (Associated Press)
• Two companies partner to develop 42 MW of solar power at 11 sites in central Virginia. (Solar Power World)
• A solar and energy storage company closes financing on a 270 MW solar farm currently under construction in Texas. (news release)

GRID: An Austin-based generator company sees sales surge after last February’s winter storm left thousands across Texas without power or water. (Austin American-Statesman)

POLITICS: Dominion Energy said it requested the return of a $200,000 contribution to a political action committee that used the money to attack the Republican candidate for Virginia governor, but the utility declines to answer whether that request has been granted. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

WIND: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam will make an announcement today at a marine terminal involving the state’s role as a ​“logistics hub for offshore wind energy” and is connected to Dominion Energy’s construction of an offshore-wind project. (WAVY)

CLIMATE:
• Hurricane Ida and the prospect of increasingly more climate-driven storms marked a tipping point that pushed some New Orleans residents to pack up and move elsewhere. (NOLA.com)
• A Texas county approves part of a 20-year project to restore its marshlands, beaches and dunes with funding that comes in part from a settlement over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. (Beaumont Enterprise)

COMMENTARY:
• Kentucky’s solar facilities offer real benefits to local communities that include helping secure significant investments by manufacturers such as Toyota, Dow and Ford, write a farmer and former environmental regulator. (Courier Journal)
• U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s determination to preserve fossil fuels and avoid an ​“entitlement mentality” ignores West Virginia’s existing reliance on government funding and virtually assures the state will remain reliant on federal handouts in the future, writes an editorial board. (Beckley Register-Herald)
• Decarbonizing heavy industry through carbon capture technology will require not just grants and tax credits but a cap or price on carbon emissions, writes a Houston energy consultant. (Houston Chronicle)