OPINION | Digging into violence: pipeline corporations’ legacy of extraction and violence

For years, the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) has torn through Indigenous communities in North Carolina, amongst other areas, spreading different types of violence in its wake. The gender-based violence, land violence and cultural violence Indigenous communities face all intersect because of the pipeline. 

“George Washington would skin Indians and wear them as boots or leggings,” 7 Directions of Service Co-Founder Crystal Cavalier-Keck said. “That's the type of mentality you have to think about: extractive industries are violent.” 

Cavalier-Keck has worked closely with Mary Finley-Brook, University of Richmond professor of Geography, Environment and Sustainability. Their collaboration brought Cavalier-Keck to campus, where she also spoke to students in Finley-Brook’s Planet Earth: People and Place classes last semester.

Indigenous advocates like Cavalier-Keck and her husband, Jason Keck, fight for an environment with cleaner natural resources. 

Violence against Indigenous communities has been present in the Americas since Europeans first stepped foot in the New World. Since then, there has been a lack of regard and respect for Indigenous culture. 

Large corporations, like Equitrans Midstream Corporation, NextEra Capital Holdings, Inc., Con Edison Transmission Inc., WGL Midstream MVP LLC and RGC Midstream, LLC among others, insert pipes into the earth because of the normalized lack of respect towards it. The pipes can have dangerous consequences not only on the environment, but also on the people in the communities living around it. One of the negative consequences are pollutants, including hazardous air pollutants and known human carcinogens like benzene and toluene.

Cavalier-Keck said: “Water can be clear and look great, but it also cannot be safe because it can have chemicals in it — chemicals that we cannot see with our naked eye. So we, as humans, have to be like, okay at the end of the day, do you want this type of harmful chemical or project in your neighborhood?” 

These corporations have developed a mindset where they are invincible and superior; this mindset led to a disregard for the harm they inflict on the people they see as “beneath” them. 

The pipeline Cavalier-Keck’s community battles against is the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Mountain Valley’s main pipeline extends from West Virginia through six Virginia counties, ending at a compressor station in Pittsylvania; according to a Cardinal News story. The project began in 2014, but continues with strong opposition from the communities it interferes with. Opponents of the pipeline, through activism, filing lawsuits, and bringing to light environmental violations have slowed down its construction. 

“The type of mentality that these corporations have really has separated themselves from humanity,” Cavalier-Keck said. “They don’t wanna think about illness or things that will make them vulnerable. They don’t wanna think about their vulnerabilities; they kinda wanna be this Superman type where nothing can destroy them as a person, so then they think they need to do that for this environment.” 

This superior mentality also holds when it comes to violence against Indigenous women. Man camps are considered to be hotspots of rape, domestic violence and sex trafficking according to an article by Ana Condes. Man camps are industry labels for the settlements that temporarily host pipeline construction workers. The form these camps take on has transitioned over time, including recently as hotels, but the outcome — physically and sexually harming women — has remained constant.  

“Enbridge [previously Dominion Energy] made it into the news three different times because they were trafficking women,” Cavalier-Keck said. “They would get the women drunk, rape them in their hotels, and then they would take them to their buddies in other hotels, so no matter how small the distance, that’s still trafficking, and some of these women would get kidnapped.” 

The violence that pipeline corporations bring to Indigenous communities is prominent, yet not advertised. Why? Because there is nobody to hold them accountable, and the corporations they work for are doing nothing to stop them; the responsibility then falls on advocates like Cavalier-Keck to prevent the violence that is being forced onto women, onto the Indigenous communities, and the violence that the pipeline is putting into the sacred land itself.

“The pipeline companies are counting on people to not be smart about these decisions and take their money,” Cavalier-Keck said. “We have to go in and educate them. Some people get stuck in their ways and they don't wanna hear it. But you have to for the benefit of your community.” 

Advocates’ most recent fight has been about the extension of Mountain Valley Pipeline: Mountain Valley Southgate, a 31-mile extension of the original MVP that would run from Pittsylvania through Rockingham County, North Carolina. As of May 4, MVP Southgate falls under President Donald Trump’s National Energy Emergency under the Executive Order 14156,  posing an even greater threat to the opposition of MVP Southgate. The opponents to Southgate continue to protest that the expansion is both unnecessary and disruptive to the environment, and the pipelines align with hundreds of environmental violations according to another Cardinal News story. The MVP violated nearly two dozen erosion and sediment control rules according to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and the pipeline failed hydrostatic testing.

In 2019, the pipeline violated the Commonwealth of Virginia’s environmental laws and regulations at sites in five counties, according to a Virginia Mercury story. Environmental violations have been a clear trend with the Mountain Valley Pipeline since its inception. 

Pipeline companies like the MVP engage in corporate philanthropy to mask the violence they engage in. Corporate philanthropy refers to the ways a company “gives back” to its community or promotes the welfare of others. However, it is also often referred to as “charity greenwashing” because companies will donate money to local nonprofits while simultaneously committing harm to their environments. To benefit their organizations, some companies, like nonprofits, tend to accept this "charity greenwashing."

Cavalier-Keck said: “They are buying these nonprofits’ silence and asking them to say it's okay for these pipeline companies to come in. They’re not telling you the volatile chemicals they’re bringing in. They’re not telling you that you live in a ‘blast zone’ so that if the pipeline leaks you will be incinerated. They’re not telling you that they’re bringing dangers into your communities with man camps, transient workers who come into your communities.” 

The goal of pipeline companies is to profit at all costs, regardless of the detriment their actions are having on the communities around them, specifically on Indigenous communities. 

“So there's just this whole cycle of charity greenwashing,” Cavalier-Keck said. 

Solutions to this corporate capture of state agencies and other organizations and institutions are possible, but are often difficult to make happen. The fix has to come from the root. 

“The real solution comes from the people that are in charge. Part of the solution is pushing [the government and corporations] who do the most polluting and the most wasting all of it to reduce their carbon footprint. Often it takes the responsibility of those who control the infrastructure not to do their job to create such a negative impact,” Jason said. 

Solutions stem from advocates like Cavalier-Keck, Jason, Finley-Brook and the countless others who fight to protect the environment, but real change has to come from the government and the corporations that are in power. It is crucial for people to be aware of who and what is harming the planet, so the fight for a safe earth becomes imperative and unignorable to those in power.  

Contact opinions and columns writer Christiana Cino at christina.cino@richmond.edu