Photo by Josh Doke
There's something about being on a bike that expands what you notice. You're moving fast enough to cover ground, slow enough to actually see it. This past weekend, a crew of riders from all over Tennessee spent two days covering 100 miles along the proposed route of Enbridge’s Ridgeline pipeline, from Cummins Falls State Park in Jackson County to the TVA Kingston plant in Roane County. By the end we passed through eight counties, dozens of towns, neighborhoods, countless farms and incredible wild places; and we saw what a pipeline looks like in a way no map or news story could have illustrated.
The pipeline runs really close to people. Not off in the distance or even across the street. We’re talking right out the window, close. You round a bend on a county road and the cleared right-of-way cuts just between a house and its garage. You pass a front yard with toddler toys in the grass and the pipeline is just to the side of the house. The list goes on: churches, small businesses, playgrounds. A barn on one side, a home on the other, pipeline in between. Over and over, for two days. We would turn a corner or crest a hill and every time say out loud, “There’s the pipeline again.”
Pipelines pose a very serious threat to property and lives. On average, data shows there is a pipeline incident causing a fatality, injury, and/or an unintentional explosion once every five days. The potential hazard zone for the Ridgeline gas pipeline is approximately 786 feet from the centerline of the pipeline, but the pipeline is located much closer to the many of the homes it’s running by. Methane gas flowing through these pipelines is highly explosive, and these projects create a perpetual risk of harm for the families living along the pipeline’s route.
Enbridge’s gas pipelines also have a history of deadly explosions. The existing pipeline that runs along much of the Ridgeline Pipeline’s proposed route has exploded twice in Smith County. In Kentucky, a 2019 explosion along a different Enbridge-owned pipeline killed one person, hospitalized six, destroyed five homes, damaged 14 other homes, and burned 30 acres of land.
Our outings leader Vince Cianciolo came up with the idea to ride along the pipeline. Around the campfire after the first day of riding, he shared the math he was doing in his head after seeing this all in person. Most landowners who signed easements- agreements with Enbridge to construct the pipeline on their property- got a one-time payment. A few thousand dollars, maybe more if they had a lawyer and the nerve to push back. Enbridge gets paid substantially more every year from that same land, and the company gets access to the land whenever they need to.
The landowner got a check. Enbridge rakes in a profit from each landowner worth more than most Tennessee families earn in a year.
Most of those landowners didn't have much of a choice. Eminent domain- the legal right of companies to take private property for a project deemed “for the public good”- has a way of making negotiations feel voluntary even when they aren't. Enbridge refers to this as its “low-risk business model”, when sharing plans with its investors. The risk is low because it was handed off to landowners, and to TVA ratepayers and communities along 122 miles of Tennessee countryside now downstream of whatever comes next, literally and figuratively.
Meanwhile, the solar projects TVA scrapped at Kingston could be powering Tennessee already. When it comes to energy sources, not only is clean energy the quickest to deploy, but it’s also the most affordable. The cost to build new gas-burning power plants is at a 10-year high, while the cost of coal is also rising. Gas prices climb and international tensions remind us what dependence on fossil fuels costs us financially. But to feel the hammering, see the blocked roads and hear the water running from the 400 creeks and streams being cut into feels visceral.
Despite all that heaviness, we had an incredible weekend together. I can’t wait for the next time we can connect an experience like this with the challenges we are grappling with across the state. Advocacy outings work. You get close to the issue in a physical way that changes how you talk about it, you bring people together who'd never otherwise cross paths, and you generate attention and understanding that a press release can't replicate. We also had 1000’s of folks following along at home on Instagram and Facebook and hundreds of people sharing our story online. Vince is excited to do it again and we would love to have more outings leaders showing us around the state.
We ended at Ladd Park in Kingston, where the Clinch and Emory Rivers meet just across from the Kingston Fossil Plant. The same spot where a dike failed on December 22, 2008 and released 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry into those rivers, impacted a community forever and leading to hundreds of coal ash clean- up workers becoming sick and with more than 60 who have passed away after being poisoned. 18 years later, we rolled our bikes to that same spot, still talking about TVA's missteps. The rivers appear cleaner, but the decisions haven't gotten much better. But people are paying attention, and pushing back, and showing up on bikes on a beautiful weekend in May. Exploring, Enjoying and Protecting!
Become part of the adventure through membership or financial support of the Tennessee Chapter at sc.org/seeds
So much gratitude!
None of this happens without a lot of people. Vince Cianciolo conceived of and led this ride, and Maureen Cianciolo became our sag vehicle driver in addition to wearing many other hats. We also were joined by Doug McIntosh, Stacey Gray, Kevin Murphy, Charlie High (who rode 25 miles fresh off his 75th birthday), Diana Hun, Haley DeLoach, Sherman Neal (Deputy Director of Military Outdoors Campaign) and Jasmine Vazin (Deputy Director of Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign). Thank you to Sue and Keith Havens for opening your home and telling your story! From our national staff and partners: Bonnie Swinford, Andy Li, Amy Kelly, Andrea Callan, Camilla Duarte Rojas, Gerry James and Jackie Ostfeld. Community partners Ridgeline Voices and Appalachian Voices. As always, the amazing Mac Post! And to Kickstand Knoxville for the use of your bikes. And I'm sure I'm leaving people out, which is its own kind of problem when the list of supporters keeps growing.