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Op-Ed: River Shitty

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Year after year, coal train derailments, sewage pipeline leaks, pesticide runoff, and other toxic substances continue to poison the James River. In a summer that’s seen multiple toxic train derailments and a two-week ban on swimming due to multiple sewage pipe breaks, climate activist Aaron Linas asks, when will we start treating our river better?

It’s time we take seriously the health of the James River. In the last two months there have been three train derailments in downtown Richmond (June 8, Rocketts Landing; June 30, Hollywood Cemetery; and July 23, Oregon Hill), resulting in multiple cars landing in the river and 500 tons of coal dumped into the Kanawha canal. In two weeks alone, there were two separate sewage pipeline leaks (July 24, Pipeline Trail; and July 29, Goochland), causing the city government to place restrictions on recreational use of the river. Richmond residents were banned for almost two weeks from swimming, rafting, and fishing in the James, or any activity that resulted in getting their skin wet. Virginia health officials have now lifted restrictions, but swimming is still discouraged.

This isn’t the first time the city has restricted swimming, and up until Ralph White’s tenure, it was flat-out banned to go in at all. In 1980, White became the James River Parks manager with a yearly budget of $3000 and a city prepared to sell off wetland parcels for development. Under his guidance and with dedicated volunteers, the park expanded its trail network, built accessible pathways, and conserved Richmond’s urban wilderness. What was once a shunned place has now become a centerpiece of the city.

There is an unspoken history of the river being used as a dumping ground for toxic and sewage waste. The forgotten Kepone plant in Hopewell was manufacturing a DDT relative from 1966 until 1975; in this time they poisoned dozens of workers and dumped over 200,000 pounds of Kepone into the river. Dredging efforts were abandoned for fear of disturbing the settled waste. After being covered with additional dirt, it still sits underneath the river floor. As Avail sang in 1998, “There’s kepone in the river, but the river’s still moving east…”

There are a few other pollutants that live on the bottom of the James, including over 70,000 gallons of crude oil from the 2014 Lynchburg train derailment. Seventeen rail cars carrying volatile crude oil derailed in the downtown area, with three going directly into the James. The images of the river on fire raised concerns over the danger of “bomb trains,” the possibility that cars carrying highly explosive bakkan shale oil from North Dakota might erupt and cause large-scale fires. Our energy reliance on natural gas escalates the potential for a devastating citywide catastrophe. Richmond is lucky that none of the last three train derailments involved fracked gas or oil.

West of Richmond, 60 miles upstream in the town of Bremo, is a coal-fired power plant owned by Dominion. In 2016, Dominion was granted a permit by the Department of Environmental Quality to drain 255 million gallons of coal ash wastewater, containing toxic chemicals like arsenic, selenium, and hexavalent chromium, from the 85-year-old Bremo facility’s ponds into the river. The dumping levels exceeded state-accepted standards of industrial discharge, but DEQ and Dominion claimed the river could sufficiently dilute the heavy metals and not effect drinking water. Dominion has another coal-fired power plant 17 miles downstream in Chester, where for years heavy metals from the coal ash ponds have been leaking into the surrounding waterways. After legislation passed in 2019 that requires Dominion to clean up all of its coal ash ponds within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, any new coal ash from the Chester power plant is now disposed in a landfill.

The most widely known river polluter is the combined sewer overflow system (CSO) that routinely dumps untreated wastewater after a storm. It is common knowledge that after a heavy rain you should avoid swimming in the river, for fear of contracting MRSA or a staph infection. Formal complaints about CSO began in the 1970’s with Newton Hooper Ancarrow, who owned a boat landing on the south side of the river. The landing is now known as Ancarrow’s Landing and sits across the James from Rocketts Landing. In 1974, he directed a film, The Raging James, that focused on the channelizations of waterways and its disruption of environmental health – a debate that is currently underway about Reedy Creek. He would go on to formally petition city council to address the damages CSO had on the river and his business. The city council, in response to his nuisance, placed an eminent domain acquisition on his property — forcing the sale of Ancarrow’s Landing and surrounding area to build where is now the wastewater treatment facility.

Governor Ralph Northam’s allocation of $50 million from the coronavirus relief money for Richmond combined-sewer cleanup is a fraction of the help needed to end overflows into the James River. The City of Richmond had previously asked for $883 million to build infrastructure that can capture, store, and treat heavy storm water flows by separating street runoff from sewage, and bring the city in compliance with new state mandates to end CSO discharge by 2035.

If the Governor and Mayor are sincere about ensuring reliable access to clean drinking water and rebuilding our aging infrastructure, then they must declare a state of climate emergency. Addressing CSO has been evaded, if not ignored, due in part to political unwillingness, as well as the exorbitant cost and planning of a project that is likely to disrupt many areas of the city. This procrastination has increased the cost of repairs, and leaves city operators with no choice but to dump untreated raw sewage into the river. It took two days to inform the public that a 40-inch pipe in Goochland leaked 300,000 gallons of undiluted raw sewage into the James. That’s straight up from the toilet to the river.

Beyond the pollutants of coal, natural gas, and CSO, there are other dumping actors. The juvenile, women’s, and men’s prisons in Powhatan have been permitted to discharge septic treated wastewater into the James for decades. They maintain this is within compliance, but rumors of malfunctions and excess flow dumping untreated wastewater go unnoticed. Runoff from commercial farms add pesticides, sediment, and animal waste.

A discussion about the health of the James River must include all existing actors and aspects of water infrastructure. If we continue to allow permitted or accidental dumping of pollution into our waterways, we reverse the work of people like Ralph White and the volunteers who spent decades to get us a swimmable river. The history of James River pollution must be retold for each generation to ensure we don’t forget or replicate such poor methods of waste management and energy consumption. A city without drinkable water is not fit for humans.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect editorial policy.

Top Photo by Erin Ferrell, via Twitter

VCU Workers Form All-Inclusive Union

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Today’s announcement that the VCU Union is now open to faculty and staff members of all classifications has implications beyond higher education. The fight to improve the working conditions of Richmond’s largest employer could have ripple effects that impact all Virginians.

This afternoon VCU workers, including tenure line faculty, adjunct faculty, and staff, announced the formation of a VCU union. The union, a chapter of United Campus Workers (UCW), will be an expansion of a UCW-affiliated organizing effort among adjunct instructors in the School of the Arts. 

The implications of this new organizing effort extend beyond VCU, and beyond higher education in general.

Virginia has long been considered one of the most hostile states for labor, ranking dead last among the 50 states in a 2019 analysis of worker’s rights by anti-poverty group Oxfam.

In 2019, just 4 percent of Virginia wage and salary workers were part of unions, compared to a national rate over 10 percent. Only South Carolina and North Carolina ranked lower. According to a 2020 report, Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina are also the only three states to prohibit “collective bargaining by public sector employees including firefighters, police and teachers,” a ban that will be eased in Virginia on May 1, 2021 for local public employees, but will remain in effect for state employees, such as faculty and staff at VCU and other state universities. Notably, the new law does not bestow collective bargaining agreements to localities; it only allows localities to consider and revise the bans if they see fit.

However, the activities banned by these laws represent just a slice of union activity, and the means by which unions can accumulate leverage in labor negotiations are diverse. Via the First Amendment, it is unconstitutional for a state to prohibit unionization, even at public institutions; only the act of collective bargaining between the union and the state entity is banned.

In 2011, the Economic Policy Institute found that workers in “right to work” states like Virginia earn, on average, 15 percent less in wages. The number becomes 3.1 percent when adjusted for socioeconomic factors like cost of living, but it should be noted that cost of living is often lower in locations with lower “quality of life,” including access to quality education, healthcare, green spaces, transportation, and other factors (therefore, adjusting these numbers for cost of living has implications for equity). Moreover, workers in “right to work” states are also less likely to receive health benefits from employers, and are dramatically less likely to be protected by a union contract.

A January 2021 UCW victory in Tennessee presents an example of the power unions can wield, even in “right to work” states. Though Tennessee does not currently prohibit collective bargaining between unions and government entities, Tennessee has had “right to work” laws on the books since 1947 (Tennessee state law weakens unions by allowing workers who are protected by union negotiations to forgo paying union dues). 

Despite this considerable obstacle, in January of this year the University of Memphis chapter of UCW secured $15/hour minimum wage for all campus workers, the result of a union campaign waged since 2017, according to a UCW press release.

By contrast, at the time of this writing VCU is running multiple ads on ‘vcujobs.com’ for hourly positions that pay $10/hour or less. This is including a position in the box office that pays just $9.50/hour, is eligible for 29 hours per week, and in which the new hire would be ineligible to ever receive health benefits, according to the point of contact listed in the ad, who was reached by phone by RVA Mag. A separate VCU Jobs listing seeking a housekeeper lists $10/hour as the expected salary. 

In 2021, VCU pledged to raise their standard base pay to $1,200/credit hour taught for adjuncts, though in the current academic year, base pay is $1,100/credit, and VCU has paid faculty wages as low as $816 per credit, according to Kristen Reed, an associate professor and member of the VCU union’s steering committee. In a press release on April 12, the union noted “’VCU Arts Adjuncts Organizing for Fair Pay’ was successful three years ago in winning pay increases.” However, “the increases they won still leave most VCU adjuncts below [Virginia’s] poverty line.”

A 12-credit load is considered full-time for adjuncts at VCU, and would gross $28,800 for two semesters of work. According to an online paycheck tabulator, after deductions a single person earning this salary should expect a net paycheck of $946 twice a month. According to a Richmond Times Dispatch report, rents in Richmond rose more than 30 percent over a six-year period from 2012 to 2018. According to multiple apartment rental websites, in April 2021 the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Richmond was approximately $1,200 per month. 

Therefore, VCU adjunct instructors — many of whom have PhDs or other terminal degrees in their fields — can expect to spend over 63 percent of their take home teaching pay on renting a one-bedroom apartment in Richmond, with just $700 left over per month for all other expenses including child care, groceries, student loans, car payments, heating, electricity, hot water, retirement savings, health care, leisure, and unforeseen expenses. 

According to VCU Human Resources, only “salaried” faculty members are eligible for health benefits, a classification that does not include adjuncts. Furthermore, the school will only contribute to benefits premiums for employees who work 30 hours a week or more. With a budget stretched this tightly, a worker at this income level would be unlikely to accrue disposable income to create an emergency fund, save for a future down payment on a property, or pursue other long-term financial goals.

Photo via VCU CNS

To understand the full context of Virginia’s contemporary labor crisis, one must also revisit two familiar Virginian themes: Segregation and Dominion Energy. 

As sociologist Marc Dixon describes, the founder of the “right to work” movement was a segregationist named Vance Muse. Muse and his organization — “The Christian American Association,” founded in 1936 — were based in Texas, but wielded a powerful influence through the American South. As early as 1916, Muse is noted as opposing a Texan pro-labor law that protected railway workers from excessively long work days. 

Revealingly, in opposing unions, Muse deployed ugly, anti-Black rhetoric: “From now on, white women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.”

In 1961, Martin Luther King Jr laid bare the connection between anti-Blackness and anti-labor sentiments, telling the AFL-CIO “the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.”

That same year, King condemned “right to work” laws in more general terms. “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work,'” he said. “It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone… Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer, and there are no civil rights.”

According to Dixon, though numerous unions were segregated — and the AFL’s record on race is particularly checkered — in the early 1940s, Muse saw the CIO’s opposition to Jim Crow laws as a particular threat (later these national, competing entities merged into the AFL-CIO). An expert in coded, racist public messaging, Muse’s group lobbied heavily for the successful passage of “anti-violence laws” that ultimately prohibited union strike picketing in states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas, effectively making illegal one of the primary tactics unions deploy in making grievances public, and accruing negotiation leverage.

Emboldened by these victories, in the late 1940s numerous other conservative state legislatures and governors cracked down on organizing efforts. 

In Virginia, a battle between Virginia Electric and Power Company (predecessor to Dominion) and its workers led then-Governor William Tuck to pass a right-to-work law in 1947. Tuck made national headlines for his anti-labor resistance, and notably, was an enthusiastic participant in the Virginian strategy of “massive resistance” to the Supreme Court’s Brown vs Board of Education decision, which desegregated schools. In the US Congress, where Tuck represented Virginia from 1953-1969, the congressman fought vigorously against civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

In 1946 though, to smash efforts of energy sector labor to attain fair wages and safer working conditions, then-Governor Tuck drafted 1,600 “essential production and maintenance workers” of Virginia Electric and Power Company into an “unorganized militia,” a power play that temporarily reclassified private utility employees as members of the armed forces, whose chain of command leads to the governor. William Green, then President of the AFL, described the action as “involuntary servitude.” 

After a response from the union that he found unsatisfactory, Tuck ordered 2,500 members of the Virginia State Guard to assemble in uniform. Each member was given papers to distribute to power company employees in their districts. According to a New York Times article published that week, “One paper was a ‘notice of draft and order to report,’ addressed to the worker as ‘a member of the unorganized militia of Virginia.” 

A second sheet of paper contained the following warnings: 

If and when any union of its employees calls its members out on strike, your status as an employee of such company shall thereupon cease, and you shall immediately thereafter be on active duty as a member of the State militia, and assist in the operation of said company’s plants and facilities which will be taken over by the Commonwealth of Virginia […] You are now subject to the military law of Virginia, and for disobedience to orders you are subject to such lawful punishment as a court-martial may direct.

All male workers under the age of 55 received the above notices.

In this dramatic, legally-dubious union-busting maneuver by an anti-labor segregationist governor, one can observe the intersection of militarism, class struggle, corporate welfare and racism in Virginia. Serving as an executive agent and state enforcer for the private utility that would ultimately transform into modern day Dominion, Tuck defeated the Virginia labor movement, and cemented some of the nation’s most aggressive anti-labor policies into Virginian law.

Virginia’s contemporary position in the basement of labor rankings not only correlates with its ghastly record of human bondage, genocide, Jim Crow laws, and other systemic forms of anti-Blackness: the genealogy and impetus behind our labor laws and organizing restrictions are inextricably entwined with segregation and forced labor.

This week’s announcement of a comprehensive union for VCU employees represents a dramatic step forward in the history of Virginia labor. VCU is the largest employer in the city of Richmond, and one of the top five largest institutions of higher learning in Virginia by population. 

Moreover, a new law set to go into effect on May 1, 2021 will allow localities to determine whether non-state public employees will be allowed to collectively bargain. For example, if a Virginia locality passes new ordinances permitting them to do so, teachers and police officers employed by the locality could be allowed to negotiate via a union. However, the transference of discretion to local governments in deciding the legality of union negotiation is reminiscent of the General Assembly’s passage of a Civilian Review Board bill last year, which critics say gives localities too much power to convene (or not convene) police review boards with limited tools. Similarly, in a state as business-friendly as Virginia, there is reason for skepticism about whether the new labor law will create substantive change for workers. 

Furthermore, state employees, including all employees of state universities such as VCU, are not covered under the new bill, and will still be prohibited from both picketing and collective bargaining through a union.

Nonetheless, the new collective bargaining law, viewed alongside other signs of progress — including organizing efforts at multiple Virginia universities — may provide a glimmer of hope. With a Democrat-controlled General Assembly and Governorship, the recent passage of marijuana legalization in Virginia, and a 2021 election in full swing for numerous state-level positions, the Virginia labor movement may have a unique opportunity to expand and apply pressure to politicians. 

How lawmakers and their counterparts in VCU administration respond to this moment may provide a litmus test for how far toward progressive, equitable reforms Old Dominion is willing to swing.  

Top Photo: VCU Monroe Park campus; photo by Noah Fleischman.

Dominion, Decriminalization, and Demilitarizing the Police: An Exclusive Q&A With Jennifer McClellan

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RVA Mag spoke with Virginia State Senator and candidate for governor Jennifer McClellan about her plan for Virginia, from renewable energy and Citizen Review Boards to marijuana legalization and the Green New Deal.

Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia State Senator representing the Richmond-based 9th District, has declared her candidacy in the 2021 race for governor.  If successful, she would be the first Black woman elected governor in United States history, and the second woman elected to statewide office in Virginia. An attorney by trade, McClellan was also the first member of the Virginia House of Delegates to participate in a legislative session while pregnant. After Donald McEachin’s election to the House of the Representatives, McClellan won her current seat in the state senate in a special election.

A former vice chair of the Virginia DNC, McClellan has moved to the left of other prominent Virginia Democrats who have facilitated widely criticized energy contracts and pipelines in collaboration with energy giants such as Dominion. Below, McClellan presents a platform that includes fighting Dominion, demilitarizing the Virginia State police, and decriminalizing all drugs.

RVA Mag: Senator McClellan, thank you for taking the time to sit with us. Let’s start with the main thing on everyone’s mind right now: policing. As a candidate for Governor, how do you view police reform on a state-wide level? 

Jennifer McClellan: Starting with special session, it’s shifting a couple of different ways. There’s accountability, transparency, and consequences around police misconduct — whether it’s use of force, corruption, the whole nine yards. We need independent investigations from either a Civilian Review Board (CRB) or, at the state level, just a separate entity outside the police. They need to have subpoena power, to be able to recommend, if they find a wrongdoing, that there are consequences and that that is transparent. And that you don’t have a system where a police officer can be found to have done something wrong in one place, and just get transferred and go on as if nothing happened. 

Police have been used as the first responder for too many issues that are not crime issues. It’s not just mental health, but mental health is a big part of it. I’m carrying a bill to allow localities to do Marcus Alerts and have the Department of Criminal Justice Services and the Department of Behavioral Health to provide guidelines around that. Ghazala Hashmi and I are working together on the CRB, but we’ll also have broad police reform [legislation] – no chokeholds, no no-knock warrants. 

It’s not just the action of police and the community; it’s also what happens once you’re in the criminal justice system. Making sure that we provide more of what I’ll call “prosecutor mercy” — getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences so that if there is a crime, the penalty for it is proportionate to the injury, and allowing prosecutors to do deferred disposition for certain things. 

RVA Mag: Would you be interested in the CRB being a full-time, paid job for citizens? How do you conceive of the makeup of that board, and how do we give people enough training, confidence, and support to do that job, and do it seriously? 

JMC: From the state’s level, we are [structuring] broad guidelines that localities could use to tailor-fit their areas. Having said that, I do think having, if not full-time, at least members who are fully trained so that they fully understand the nature of what law enforcement does on a day-to-day basis, so that they understand the training that law enforcement has.

RVA Mag: If we only put in place broad legislative guidance that municipalities need to have a CRB, aren’t we leaving undue leeway for racially-biased municipalities to not take it seriously? Aren’t we allowing them to make it toothless?

JMC: I’m not ready to share the full details of [Senator Hashmi’s] bill, but we are talking with Princess Blanding and a lot of the advocates here. We are including their feedback in the draft we have.

We want to make sure that if a locality has a CRB, it has teeth and it’s independent: that it is not beholden to the police that they’re investigating. Boards of Supervisors or City Councils could have bias, and we’re trying to account for all of that. We’re focusing on enabling legislation, because it’s probably going to take more time to figure out all the best practices that we can put in place going forward. 

RVA Mag: Let’s talk about defense contracts and the Navy. Previous governors have seemed somewhat uncritically beholden to these contracts. It’s been said implicitly, and perhaps explicitly, that the economy of Virginia hinges on these contracts. How do you feel about the critical centrality of defense contracts to Virginia’s economy?

JMC: If you’re dependent on mechanisms of war, that’s just wrong. We shouldn’t be dependent on war for people to eat. Our number one business is Agribusiness. Our number two industry is Forestry. We should be working to strengthen those, and working to strengthen small businesses to not be as dependent on defense contracting, because then how well our economy does is dependent on if we’re in a state of war, or a state of [war] readiness, or not. That’s contradictory to the view of a beloved community.

Sen. McClellan with the late John Lewis. (Photo via Jennifer McClellan/Facebook)

RVA Mag: For the past two months, we have witnessed firsthand the intersection of the police and military in the streets of Richmond. That extends to the Virginia State Police, which you as governor would have control of. State police have arrived in the streets of Richmond with military vehicles and artillery. What is going on, and how are we going to address that?

JMC: I do not think police should be militarized. They do not need militarized weapons, and I think we should begin to demilitarize them. A lot of equipment is paid for through grant programs. Rather than using funding to buy military grade equipment, we should be using funding to address the root causes of crime, like mental health issues, and, to a certain extent, poverty: lack of access to economic opportunity. I don’t think you need military grade equipment.

RVA Mag: We already have the military grade equipment. Would you commit to selling off the stock of military equipment?

JMC: I would be open to that.

RVA Mag: And what about the formerly-known-as Robert E. Lee Monument, now known as Marcus-David Peters Circle? Are you for VSP fully standing down and staying out of that circle?

JMC: Unless someone is actively threatening someone else, I don’t know why they’d be there.

RVA Mag: Kim Gray has taken issue with the Black, community-based security that has been there ostensibly to protect black protesters from white supremacists. Do you agree with Kim Gray that we should disallow the carrying of AR-15s by these security personnel who have the legal right to carry them?

JMC: Right now open carry is legal for anybody, and you can’t pick and choose who can carry and who cannot. There are a lot of people who want to have a conversation about whether anybody can open carry in a public park space, and I think that’s a conversation worth having. But I don’t think you can pick and choose: these people can, and these people can’t.

RVA Mag: Let’s discuss marijuana policy. Why, under the new state law, are police still being given enforcement discretion over a petty issue such as possessing a small amount of marijuana, an issue that disproportionately criminalizes Black and brown people? Why decriminalization and not full legalization?

JMC: It needs to be full legalization for both possession and distribution. Unfortunately, the reason it’s just decriminalization now is that we couldn’t get the votes to go farther than that this year, but we’re pushing to go farther as soon as possible. I would have preferred full legalization of possession now. We’re doing a study on how to do distribution in a way so that the new market is not just the folks who have medical cannabis licenses now who are mostly white, upper middle class, and have a leg up. I have the resolution to have JLARC study how we do that distribution piece equitably, while also dealing with expungements and unraveling the War on Drugs, and giving people who have been arrested for what is going to be legal a path forward. We need to do both as quickly as possible. You’ll see, come January, we’re going to have legislation to do both.

RVA Mag: What about harder drugs? For example: heroin, cocaine, crack, crystal meth. We are incarcerating people for a health issue, and it does the opposite of providing rehabilitative care. Do you think it’s possible that sending someone to jail for substance abuse is ever a rehabilitative gesture by the government?

JMC: I don’t think we should send somebody to jail just for using drugs, let me be clear on that. Whether it’s drugs or anything that is a crime, how we deal with it should be proportionate to the injury caused. There are a lot of crimes where the punishment is too harsh, and we should change that.

For example, there are no gradations of assault on a police officer. If you throw an onion ring at a police officer and it hits him, you can get the same sentence as if you beat him over the head with a sledgehammer. That doesn’t make sense. 

I’m open to looking into all crimes to say, “What’s the social benefit of making this a crime? Does it still exist? If it does, is the punishment proportionate?” That’s the direction we should be moving in. They shouldn’t just punish you because you did something wrong and then warehouse you, throw away the key, and assume you’re never getting out. It should be: what is going to be a deterrent and a proportionate punishment, and how do we focus on rehabilitation and reentry?

Sen. McClellan with her daughter, Samantha, at the House of Delegates. (Photo via Jennifer McClellan/Facebook)

RVA Mag: One of the ways people approach drug abuse as a health issue is talking about harm reduction during drug use, since people can’t necessarily just stop using drugs because the state says so. Do you think it would be a good idea to help facilitate safer drug use practices as we treat people for their drug addiction, like providing access to safe supplies of needles?

JMC: Yes, I do. We should be looking at the underlying reasons of what made you turn to drugs in the first place. If it’s a mental health issue that’s gone untreated, let’s get you into the treatment you need so that you won’t turn back to drugs. That has to be part of the process.

RVA Mag: How do you feel about energy exploration off the coast of Virginia? How do you see Virginia’s energy independence moving forward, and how do you feel about Dominion colonizing that area?

JMC: Broadly, electric generation needs to shift away from fossil fuels to renewables. We are going to need more solar and more wind, regardless of who provides it. It would be better to have more wind provided by a third party, separate companies from Dominion. I don’t see how we get to 100 percent carbon-free without wind. We can’t get there with solar only. Wind is much better for the climate than natural gas or coal.

We did not have the votes in the General Assembly to get the full Green New Deal. The Clean Economy Act, which we did pass, does make a huge shift away from carbon into renewable, but it’s a first step. We need to push to try to get there faster.

RVA Mag: Do you take money from Dominion?

JMC: I do not.

RVA Mag: How do you feel about the Mountain Valley Pipeline?

JMC: I oppose it.

RVA Mag: Can you commit for the people of Virginia to make going against Dominion, and speaking out against the Mountain Valley Pipeline and offshore colonization, a central platform in your campaign for Governor?

JMC: Yes. I am focused on addressing climate change and shifting our energy policy so that it is less harmful to the environment, reducing energy demand through energy efficiency projects in a way that does not cause rate shock and allows the lights to stay on. I am fighting for the policy, and whoever stands in the way, I will fight against them.

RVA Mag: So…Big T [Terry McAuliffe] is running again. Is he the right person?

JMC: I can’t explain what he does either. I’m running because Virginia is ready for a new generation of leadership who will build a recovery in a way that addresses 400 years of inequity, and I’m ready to do that. I’m not running against anybody else. I’m just running for the future of Virginia that I want to see, that comes to terms with our past. I’m focused on talking to the community and talking to voters directly, and not on what other candidates are doing.

Top Photo via Jennifer McClellan/Facebook

Hundreds Trek To Virginia’s Capitol To Support Environmental Bills

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Supporting alternative energy, lowering carbon emissions, and protecting Virginia’s vulnerable communities were important issues to the crowd that gathered at the Capitol building.

Hundreds of clean energy supporters trekked to the State Capitol last week demanding Virginia move away from reliance on carbon-based energy, invest in alternative energy supplies, and lower rates for customers.

At the rally, hosted Tuesday by the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter, Chesapeake Climate Action Network Action Fund, and other environmental organizations, participants pushed for Virginia to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort to cap and reduce carbon emissions from the power sector. 

Gov. Ralph Northam supported the initiative in his 2020 budget proposal by including $733 million in new funding for the environment and clean energy. 

“In Virginia, we are proving that a clean environment and a strong economy go hand-in-hand — and having both is what makes our Commonwealth such a great place to live, work and play,” Northam said in a press release. 

Supporters of clean energy gather on the Capitol steps. Photo by Jeffrey Knight

Organizations lobbied for bills that seek to depart from a reliance on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. One focus was House Bill 1526 and its counterpart Senate Bill 851, known as the Virginia Clean Economy Act. 

These bills would develop mandatory standards, annual timelines and call for specific reductions of carbon emissions, with the goal to hit 0 percent by 2050. The bills also push for offshore wind operations and solar energy generation. 

“I’m 100% for environmental issues,” Sen. Lionell Spruill Sr., D-Chesapeake, and co-patron of SB 851, said to supporters of the bill during the rally. “If I have to stand alone for environmental issues, I will do it alone.”

After supporters met with legislators, they reconvened at the nearby St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where they heard speakers champion environmental justice and steps to combat climate change. 

Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, took to the podium during the rally to address coal ash, a by-product of burning coal in power plants that contains arsenic, mercury, and other metals.

“Most of our environmental impacts, not only of climate change but also with coal ash and pipelines, are in our most vulnerable communities,” Carroll Foy said to the audience. 

Harrison Wallace, Va. director of the Climate Action Network, address the crowd during the Clean Energy Rally. Photo by Jeffrey Knight.

Dominion is Virginia’s main energy supplier, with 2.6 million customers in Virginia and Eastern North Carolina, according to its website. The energy giant has been moving away from coal production, but environmental advocates worry that closure of Dominion’s coal ash ponds will affect nearby communities. They want Dominion to haul away the coal ash, instead of capping it in place.

Advocates also said that the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline that Dominion and other utility companies want to build as they tap into alternative energy sources will compromise communities and deviate from a zero carbon future.

“There will be 35 years of non-renewable energy if the pipeline continues,” said Corrina Beall, legislative and political director of the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter. 

The Environmental Justice Act (HB 704 and SB 406) patroned by Del. Mark Keam, D-Fairfax, and Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond, respectively, would require state agencies to review proposed environmental policies with regard to the impact on low income communities, communities of color and vulnerable populations and calls for “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people.”

The Clean Energy Rally brought hundreds to advocate for zero carbon emissions as well as other environmental legislation. Photo by Jeffrey Knight.

Supporters at the rally also pushed for the Fair Energy Bills Act (HB 1132), patroned by Del. Jerrauld “Jay” Jones, D-Norfolk, and Del. Lee Ware, R-Powhatan. The bill calls for lower rates from energy suppliers like Dominion Energy, who reportedly overcharged Virginians $277 million more than they were allowed in 2018. 

SB 966 restored the SCC’s ability to conduct earnings reviews to determine whether Dominion Energy had collected more money than required. If so, the extra revenue could be reinvested in electric distribution grid transformation as well as solar and offshore wind projects, at no extra cost to the consumer. 

“What makes more financial sense is for the money to be reinvested, which allows the customer to get the benefit of the project without any additional rates,” said Rayhan Daudani, manager of media relations for Dominion Energy. 

He said that customers get a “great value” with rates 6.8 percent below the national average, along with increased investment in renewable energy and a transformed energy grid. Dominion said it plans to invest $750 million between offshore wind projects and smart meters that provide better grid service. 

“Our mission is to keep those prices low, build the nation’s largest offshore wind project, continue to provide solar energy across the state, and keep the lights on for our customers,” Daudani said.

Supporters of clean energy gather on the Capitol steps. Photo by Adrienne Eichner.

The offshore wind project is set to be the largest in the U.S., with enough energy to power up to 650,000 Virginia homes, according to a recent Dominion Energy press release. 

So far none of the bills supported by clean energy advocates have passed committee.

Written by Jeffrey Knight, Capital News Service. Top Photo by Adrienne Eichner.

Student Strikes Continue To Push For Climate Action

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Last Friday saw Central Virginia students missing school to demand action on climate change in ongoing Global Climate Strike actions in Richmond.

Dozens of Richmond area students skipped class Friday to demand government action on climate change. Part of the larger Youth Global Climate Strike, the actions included a march that briefly shut down one lane of Broad St. (east of Belvidere) and a rally at the state capitol.

The Richmond Climate Strike was organized by members of the local Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion (XR) chapters. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Democratic Socialists of America, and several other groups were also represented.

A group of about 70 departed from Monroe Park and headed through VCU campus, chanting and singing as surprised college students looked on. The group paused briefly in front of the Cabell Library before looping back toward Belvidere and on to Broad.

What began as a single police officer observing from a distance quickly grew to a sizeable police escort as the marchers took over busy streets. Police cars sped ahead of the procession, holding up traffic at intersections and following slowly behind. 

Protesters march through Monroe Park on their way to the state Capitol building. (Photo by Sean C. Davis)

On the lawn of the state capitol, students and activists took turns addressing the crowd, giving impassioned speeches and leading the group in songs (including, at one point, the Mr. Rogers theme).

Kennedy Wright, a 9-year-old climate activist, expressed concern for the way Virginia’s marine species are already being affected by rising temperatures.

“We need to find a way to save the ecosystem and ourselves,” she said. “I hope the politicians can fix the problem with good laws and more money for research.”

Wright runs Cool Kids Science RVA with her sister Jordan, who spoke about the increased threat of forest fires in California as well as the commonwealth.

“Here in Virginia, there are 24 counties with burn bans because, so far, it’s the driest fall Virginia has seen in 20 years,” she told the crowd. “There’s nothing we can do about the lack of rain, but we can stop contributing to making our planet hotter.”

Protesters affiliated with Chesapeake Climate Action Network march through VCU campus. (Photo by Sean C. Davis)

Several speakers stressed the importance of viewing environmental issues in a larger social justice context and elevating the voices of people of color within their movement.

Laura Haden, a local XR organizer, sought to illustrate the link between the fossil fuel industry and broader policies that negatively impact people, drawing a line between Dominion and a controversial $1.5 billion redevelopment plan backed by the company’s CEO, Tom Farrell.

“The goal to be carbon neutral by 2025 is a really big goal because we immediately think of carbon-heavy investments that would be a new coliseum in Navy Hill,” she said.” We think of the developments that are being built while occupied buildings are allowed to fall apart at the hand and profits of slum lords.”

Stephanie Younger, a 17-year-old organizer with Virginia Youth Climate Strike, explained that although people of color are disproportionately affected by climate and racial justice issues, their voices are often excluded from conversations, or dismissed as divisive and aggressive.

“And I speak from experience as a gun violence activist who has been labeled that way,” she said. “Not only does the media portray us in ways that discredit and marginalize our voices, but a lot of us are heavily criminalized for exercising our first amendment right.”

Escorted by Richmond Police, protesters filled the eastbound lanes of Broad St. on their march to the Capitol. (Photo by Sean C. Davis)

“My call to action to all of you, especially the press, the schools, the police and political leaders is to give black and brown youth climate activists the same attention and energy you gave to our white climate activists.”

Several of the attendees had been involved in anti-pipeline actions in Southwestern Virginia. Mara Robinson, a longtime environmental activist who recently moved to Richmond from Floyd, spoke about working in a support role at the April 2018 “aerial blockade” on Bent Mountain involving 61-year-old landowner Red Terry.

“We have successfully stalled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline,” she announced to cheers from the crowd. “However, we’ve had people living in trees in southwest Virginia to protect us from the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

Claudia Sachs, a junior at Glen Allen High School, performed a song she penned earlier this year after attending an earlier climate action.

“My goal is that it becomes the anthem of the climate movement,” she said after the event. “Because we need strength and power and motivation, and I think music is one of the best ways to do that.”

High school student Claudia Sachs performs an original song about the dangers of climate change at the Capitol. (Photo by Sean C. Davis)

Lyrics like “the California forests will be ash before we know it/The ice from the arctic will flood your streets and markets” predict a bleak future, but the notion didn’t come as a shock to the listeners.

The atmosphere of the event was as much about sharing grief and anxiety about the damage climate change will cause over the coming decades as it was about building political power.

Some activists, like Selene Norman, don’t have to look to future fears. Her idea of what the so-called climate crisis looks like comes from firsthand experience riding out Hurricane Irma in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2017. When an evacuation was ordered, she explained, many people lacked the resources to leave their homes.

“Gas stations were out of gas, hotels were expensive, hotels were booked out,” the Reynolds Community College student recounted. “So we were basically just sitting there waiting to die. Luckily it only hit us at a category 3, which is still pretty catastrophic.”

Climate Strikers outside Dominion’s corporate offices. (Photo by Sean C. Davis)

Actions like Friday’s strike help her deal with the anxiety of that experience.

“I applied to be an organizer — and now all those worries I had when I was in Florida — I’m able to manifest it to make a change.”

Sachs, echoing a common refrain, lamented the general public’s lack of concern about climate change despite the shrinking time frame left to meaningfully address it. Educating people, she explained, is the easy part. The problem is that many think they’ll be able to escape the rising seas and strengthened storms.

“As [Norman was] saying, if you can afford a hotel room in a disaster, or extra gas, or extra food, or you can just move, that completely is a privilege,” she said. “So I think that prevents people from seeing the urgency of it, but money is not going to save us from this climate crisis.”

After the rally, a group of students made their way to the Dominion offices at Eighth & Main to hold a die-in. As employees shuffled past and security guards watched from inside, more than a dozen tweens, teens, and young adults laid down on the sidewalk and remained still for five minutes. Afterward they slowly made their way to their feet chanting, “the oceans are rising, and so are we,” then dispersed.

The die-in at Dominion Energy’s corporate headquarters. (Photo by Sean C. Davis)

“We chose the capitol location because we wanted to put pressure on the politicians who will be coming in in a month or so,” Sachs explained. “And we decided to march to Dominion because Dominion is really the company that is harming people on the ground and damaging so many communities.”

Top Photo by Sean C. Davis

How Virginians Are Going Solar, Powered By National Program

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Solar United Neighbors is helping Virginians who care about the environment band together and convert their homes and businesses to solar energy.

Joy Loving bought a Prius in 2012. The purchase was the first of two investments she said she made in a personal effort to save money and reduce her carbon footprint. The second: go solar.

After converting her home to solar energy, Loving began leading solar cooperatives with members of her Harrisonburg community who also were interested in going solar. As rooftop solar systems began popping up across the city, people began to notice.

“I think that’s because it’s a small city,” Loving said. “Solar panels that are put on roofs are visible in a way, whereas my own solar panels, living out in the county as I do, are viewed only by the cattle and sheep who live in the fields nearby.”

This massive rooftop geothermal heat pump sits on a garage in Bruceton Mills, WV. (Photo via VCU-CNS)

Co-ops such as Solarize Harrisonburg, which Loving founded, were helped off the ground largely by Solar United Neighbors, a national organization dedicated to representing the needs and interests of solar owners and supporters. SUN carries out its mission in two channels: helping homeowners and businesses convert to rooftop solar, and encouraging individuals to fight for their energy rights.

“Our work is dedicated to directing the control of benefits of our energy system back to local communities, with distributed ‘rooftop’ solar as the cornerstone,” Aaron Sutch, SUN’s program director in Virginia, wrote in an email. “We’re creating jobs and building clean, resilient energy into our communities while giving consumers energy choice and freedom.”

The organization brings individuals and businesses together to create solar co-ops in communities across the nation. Once the co-ops are large enough, SUN pairs the groups with local solar installers. Members of the co-op review different bids and pick an installer they think would work best for their specific needs. The chosen installer then helps individuals within the group create a personalized plan to go solar.

As of November, SUN said it has helped more than 840 Virginia families convert to rooftop solar.

Another key facet of SUN’s mission is encouraging solar homeowners to advocate for their energy rights. An example of this would be the push to lift Virginia’s cap on net metering. Net metering is a policy that compensates solar homeowners who might produce more electricity monthly than they consume from the public utility grid. 

Excess solar energy is fed to the public grid under net metering, and owners can use that surplus to offset their monthly energy bills. 

 The General Assembly passed a bill in March raising Virginia’s net metering cap for not-for-profit solar owners from 1% to 2%. The bill also saw the collective cap for all members of a co-op raised to 7%. This legislation was praised by organizations like SUN.

Members of SUN gathered at the College of William & Mary for the 2019 Virginia Solar Congress. (Photo via VCU-CNS)

This bill also enables investor-owned utilities to develop solar projects by allowing Virginians to participate in a voluntary subscription program. While this could allow more solar to be built in Virginia, it falls short of utility-scale solar that would benefit communities.

Sutch said residents should be allowed to participate in community solar projects.

“Community solar enables individuals and businesses to get bill credit from a nearby shared solar project,” he said. “This will allow renters as well as low and moderate-income Virginians to benefit from solar energy even if they are unable to install a system on their own rooftop.”

However, the issue in Virginia, as Sutch pointed out, is that Virginia’s energy system defers to the monopoly created by Dominion Energy. There are currently contracts in place that prevent churches, schools, and other municipal buildings from generating their own power outside of energy provided by Dominion, except on rare occasions such as weather emergencies.

“What we see is our energy progress running up against a very powerful special interest that works against the interests of many of the Virginia customers,” Sutch said.

SUN got its start in D.C. in 2009, stemming from the Mt. Pleasant Solar Cooperative originally started by Anya Schoolman. She said her son Walter and his friend Diego watched An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary about climate change, and wanted to help fight the problem by going solar. After realizing that an isolated transition to solar power was complicated and expensive, Schoolman wondered if the answer might be to convert her neighborhood in bulk.

After two weeks, more than 50 neighbors had joined Schoolman in wanting to install solar power on their roofs. The group became D.C.’s first solar co-op and two years later, 45 families in the area were reliant on solar energy.

Schoolman created DC SUN to replicate the success of its neighborhood co-op. Over the next decade, the DC SUN model spread to nearby states. In 2017, Solar United Neighbors became a nationwide program offering memberships. There were seven state programs already in place when it was officially established; now there are 13. In addition to D.C. and Virginia, SUN has memberships in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia.

A large rooftop solar unit at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hampton, VA featured during the 2019 Virginia Solar Tour. (Photo via VCU-CNS)

Gov. Ralph Northam signed an executive order in September laying out goals for a future driven by renewable energy. The order called for 30% of the state’s electricity to be supplied by renewable energy by 2030, and 100% of electricity supplied by renewable energy by 2050. 

“Solar energy is a rapidly growing segment of our economy,” Northam stated in a press release. “I am proud that the commonwealth is playing a role in driving this demand and taking advantage of the benefits that this resource provides.”

SUN offers a multitude of other programs aimed at giving Virginians the information they need to go solar. That information can be found on SUN’s website, along with a calendar of events the organization is hosting in the near future.

Loving continues to help establish other solar co-ops in the Shenandoah Valley.

“What we’re doing is educating the citizenry and the customers and other stakeholders of the big utilities,” Loving said. “I think that’s a really important mission.”

Written by Owen FitzGerald, Capital News Service. Top Photo: A home in Massachusetts showing off its new, large rooftop solar unit. Via VCU-CNS