Submitted via Email

January 3, 2019
Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board

Re: Site Suitability and History of Union Hill (Environmental Justice)

Dear Air Board Members:

I would like to offer my comments regarding site suitability of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s
proposed compressor station in Union Hill, Buckingham County, as well as comments regarding
patterns of historic erasure and exploitation as it relates to environmental justice and the actions
of ACP LLC, Dominion Energy, the Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of
Historic Resources, and Governor Ralph Northam.

Of the only three “resources” identified in Union Hill by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s original
surveys, all three were deemed “ineligible” for historic recognition. The Virginia Department of
Historic Resources has agreed with this opinion. I am not surprised by this assessment. The
common practice of Virginia corporations and the governmental bodies of this Commonwealth
has been to exploit, erase, and displace black communities. This is why it took so long to
reclaim what remained of the African Burial Ground in Richmond, VA, after Interstate 95 paved
over it and destroyed surrounding black neighborhoods like Jackson Ward and Navy Hill. The
Richmond African Burial Ground holds no visible markers of its significance to black history. Nor
does the nearby Shockoe Bottom retain visible structures denoting that it was once the second
largest slave trading district in America. However, the lack of visible markers did not prevent the
reclamation of the African Burial Ground, just as the lack of visible structures did not prevent
Preservation Virginia from placing Shockoe Bottom on its Most Endangered Historic Places list.
These sites are historic because of their very existence and because of the events that we know
took place there. The human history persists in the descendants who live today, which is
something that cannot be erased.​ Attempts to ignore, discredit, diminish, and otherwise
erase this history, allowing corporations to exploit people and land for profit, are the very
tools of environmental racism.

Upon review of the documents provided by the DEQ for the public to comment on at this time,
and in light of known Virginia history (from 1619 to the present-day, here and now, 2019),​ I
would offer to the Department of Environmental Quality and other agencies of the
Commonwealth, that their recent actions are a sad testament to the ongoing systemic
racism that has patterned our economy and the lives of black people for generations.​ The
question of environmental racism can no longer be ignored, and it is on this basis, and the basis
of recent comments and actions offered by state agencies, that the Air Pollution Control Board
must judge the placement of a toxic 53,000+ hp compressor station in Union Hill.
I am particularly dissatisfied with some of the comments provided by Marc Wagner, Senior
Architectural Historian for VDHR, in his response to the application for Union Hill as a historic
district. In response to a description of historical resources such as small farms, schools, and
churches established by Freedmen and Women in Union Hill, Mr. Wagner replied, “There is a
pattern of resources moved or lost that diminishes the significance.” It is curious to me that his
comment comes in response to historic churches that originated as “brush arbor sites” which
were, ​by definition,​ temporary outdoor structures - structures that played a significant role in the
transition of black people out of enslavement. Wagner is correct that there has always been “a
pattern of resources moved or lost” when it comes to the black population on this continent.
That is precisely why we are talking about environmental justice at all.​ It is this pattern of
economic exploitation, of specifically human and historic erasure, for the benefit of corporations
and the wealthy, that perpetuates environmental and economic injustice. And thus, here we are.
We can see quite clearly this pattern exists today and is being leveraged yet again by
corporations against low-income and minority populations. It’s curious to me that according to
VDHR, this fact inherently “diminishes the significance of these resources”, when really it should
increase the evidence of environmental racism at play in these devilish proceedings.

I also take strong offense with Wagner’s attempts to pit the value of slave burial grounds against
one another. While he admits the evidence of many slave cemeteries are “certainly a significant
aspect to this proposal” he then condescends to ask whether the ones in Union Hill are more
“exceptional” than another. I’m appalled that he would ask this. This should not even be a
question of relevance. The majority of historic black cemeteries are so overlooked, so badly
cared for, that any efforts to properly memorialize these resting places should not be a
competition. Not to mention that the descendants of those enslaved people have never been
afforded the reparations that they were owed after their labor literally built this country’s wealth
(including the wealth of corporations like Dominion Energy). As such, this question is useless
and highly offensive.

The corresponding demand for photographic evidence of plantations and existing slave quarters
is also offensive, when the record states that many of these structures had succumbed to fire in
the 1960s. Lack of photographic evidence does not negate the existence of slavery, plantations,
or their impact on the people and region.

What I gather from the records available to us is that the Union Hill area has been deemed
“ineligible” for historic recognition as a whole because it lacks visible structures or “resources”.
For the resources that VDHR did evaluate themselves, namely, a household situated at 537
Union Hill Road, there is zero explanation from the VDHR as to why the dwelling holds no
historical significance. At the same time, the area is surrounded by several intact plantation-era
structures that have already been marked by state and federal agencies as historic places, and
that have somehow been preserved, both structurally and financially. Weighing these two
pieces of information seems to beg the question of why there would be so few remaining
structures from a post-Emancipation period for an economically and socially oppressed
population? Even once granted freedom, the descendants of enslaved people struggled to build
and maintain wealth and equity amongst their former slave holding masters, facing one form of
oppression to another from the Jim Crow era to mass incarceration, to the more present-day
battles of environmental justice. It is shameful to me that the VDHR would so easily dismiss the
historical significance of Union Hill because of the reality of the oppression that created this
situation of inequity to begin with. In a sense, what this boils down to is that ​Dominion Energy
is being allowed to benefit from the historic erasure of this same black community,
enabled by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the Virginia Department of
Environmental Quality, and by Governors Northam and McAuliffe.​ ​This is to me, the
definition of structural and environmental racism - a system by which those with
decision-making power arbitrarily grant significance to certain populations, uplifting a
certain history, and benefiting a certain demographic class, while erasing, displacing,
and exploiting others for the benefit of those who already hold power, wealth, and
influence.

The ACP’s original findings, pre-dating the recent comments of Mr. Wagner, similarly suggest
that the area known as Union Hill “generally lacks the historic built environment and agricultural
landscape features that would have characterized its late nineteenth and early twentieth century
development.” This may be true, but once again it should not be grounds for dismissal of
historic significance. After all, the same could be said of Jamestown’s 17th century development
- yet the historic significance of this site is not in dispute. In fact, resources have been allocated
for decades in order to study and preserve places that are no longer standing, even re-creating
the historical structures that we know WOULD have existed in these places centuries ago. The
historical significance of an area does not rest solely on what remains of physical structures
after decades of development. If it did, the area known as Shockoe Bottom in Richmond,
Virginia would not have been designated by Preservation Virginia as one of their Most
Endangered Historic Places. Not to mention that the very evidence of historical erasure and
economic oppression in communities of color is the reason that oftentimes their physical history
is no longer visible. The attempt to dismiss the historic aspect of Union Hill on this basis would
be laughable if it did not reveal the inherent racism that has long characterized so-called
“economic development” projects for decades.

Furthermore, ACP seems to imply that because the historic resources identified by
anthropologist Lakshmi Fjord are outside of the project APE, that they should not be considered
in findings for historical significance. This is also an illogical claim that lacks any integrity. If we
accept that the pollutants from the proposed compressor station would impact people well
outside the boundary of the Dominion Energy’s property, then we must accept that we are
talking not just about the historic significance of that particular parcel that Dominion now owns,
but of the surrounding area known as Union Hill. ACP’s attempt to draw arbitrary lines around
land, communities, and historical timelines is an attempt at exclusion and is, by definition, a tool
of environmental racism.

Lastly, I agree wholeheartedly with the statements reflected in the December 7, 2018 letter from
the Southern Environmental Law Center which encourages the Air Pollution Control Board to
disregard the inaccurate population estimates provided by the DEQ and rely instead on the
door-to-door study conducted by Lakshmi Fjord. The inaccurate data provided by DEQ and ACP
is further example of erasure of the Black community, and it is textbook environmental racism. If
the definition of environmental justice is the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all
people regardless of race, color, faith, national origin, or income, ...” ​then the intentional
manipulation of data with respect to siting of polluting infrastructure is the definition of
environmental racism​. The choice to use “pre-decisional screening tools” as opposed to
meaningful research reflective of the directly affected population - ​this is the definition of
environmental racism​.​ ​Not to mention the Governor’s calculated interference in the
decision-making process of this Air Board and its members, is the definition of ​environmental
racism.​ These actions of the Governor and his respective state agencies must be considered
when it comes to the question of environmental justice. The historic pattern of removal and loss
that Marc Wagner readily admits exists in Union Hill - this must also be considered when it
comes to the question of environmental justice. The cast of powerful actors that have influenced
the outcome of this decision from the very beginning - from former Governor McAuliffe and his
former Secretary of Agriculture/now Dominion representative Basil Gooden, to current Governor
Northam’s blatant interference in the just proceedings of the members of the Air Pollution
Control Board - all of their actions must be taken into account on this subject of the compressor
station and environmental justice.

Sincerely,
Whitney Whiting
Community organizer, documentarian, and life-long resident of Virginia