20140957 Ver 2_Comments and Concerns from the Rodriguez Family_20170819

Strickland, Bev
From:Linda and Bob Rodriguez <[e-mail]>
Sent:Saturday, August 19, 2017 4:38 PM
To:SVC_DENR.publiccomments
Subject:Comments and Concerns from the Rodriguez Family
Hello NC DENR — Division of Water Resources,

As citizens of this great state, we wanted to offer our comments and concerns with the proposed
Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP).
We are asking the Division of Water Resources to not grant a 401 permit for the Atlantic Coast
Pipeline for the following reasons.
Here they are:

1. Greater impacts on communities and land owners who are either Native American, people of color
and people with lower incomes. Given there are only 18 permanent jobs expected to be created by
this construction project, this does not come close to compensating the families and communities for
the disruption and displacement they will experience.
2. The amount of wetlands needed, coupled with this pipeline project cutting across critical ground
water resources and either cutting through or changing water flows for important estuaries which are
critically important to fish and animal communities, makes this project untenable.
3. As a family who depends upon ground water, we are especially mindful of any activity that can
negatively impact the flow, recharge and health of the ground water we depend upon. The
communities along the pipeline will be adversely impacted by impacts this project will bring regarding
unforeseen changes in ground water flows.
4. The actual need for this pipeline has not been clearly made. The only benefactors of this project
will be Dominion and Duke Energy. Given the fact renewable energy sources are now competitive in
costs to fossil fuel for generating electricity — and this before any carbon tax is added — will make
this project unsustainable. The losers here will be ratepayers who will be forced to pay for this
construction.
5. As climate instability increases, the impacts of methane leaks from fracked natural gas will have
a disproportionate negative impacts on this project. Again, any power generation project dependent
on fossil fuels will have a significantly higher hurdle to cross to be competitive with other renewable
sources. These negative impacts will one day be factored into the cost of the ACP gas which will
make it the most expensive way to generate electricity. The more prudent approach is to avoid these
costs from the beginning and use renewable sources for electrical power generation instead.

We again ask the Division of Water Resources to not grant a 401 permit for the ACP. We believe
other renewable power generation choices such a wind, solar, and tidal offer a better, healthier,
cheaper way to move forward without the tremendous negative impacts on both human and animal
communities along the proposed pipeline path. To put so many families, be they animal, plant or
human, at risk for only 18 permanent jobs, makes no sense to us nor the future generations who we
will pass this land onto when we are gone. We ask you to consider the impacts of your decisions on
the next seven generations of North Carolinians.

Sincerely,

Bob and Linda Rodriguez
1

2400 Countrywood Rd
Raleigh NC 27165
2