Gaslight

Starred review from May 6, 2024
Ordinary landowners square off against the powerful Dominion Energy company in this riveting report on a successful effort to thwart the construction of a natural gas pipeline from West Virginia’s fracking fields across Virginia to North Carolina. Journalist Mingle (Fire and Ice) tracks the project from 2014, when residents were first informed that a pipeline would be built on their properties. The planned pipe, at 42 inches wide, would be the largest ever to cross the Appalachian mountains; residents feared a pipe over such an uneven and erosion-prone terrain would easily be damaged, leading to poisonous leaks that would harm their health, local ecosystems, and national parkland. Nancy Sorrells, a Shenandoah Valley resident who led one of many grassroots campaigns against the pipeline, predicted that a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy would defeat Dominion and encouraged other groups to throw up as many roadblocks as possible. Mingle traces these labyrinthine legal efforts and Dominion’s counterstrikes, including eminent domain seizures. In 2020, the battle reached the Supreme Court, which sided with Dominion; nevertheless, not long afterward Dominion abandoned the project due to mounting costs. Mingle provides illuminating background on the fossil fuel industry—including its yearslong public relations campaign to relabel methane as a benign-sounding “natural gas”—and transforms “regulatory wrangling” into a propulsive story. It’s an impressive account of a David-vs.-Goliath struggle.