Residents rally online against Byhalia Connection
Justin Pearson, co-founder of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline, which is leading the fight against the Byhalia Connection pipeline, prays at the grave of his great-grandmother at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church. Mount Pisgah is across the street from where the pipeline will run. “This is all of Memphis’ fight, not just southwest Memphis or South Memphis,” Pearson said Monday, Feb. 15. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
Snow, sleet, and freezing cold weren’t enough to stop a group of local residents from holding a rally Monday, Feb. 15, to voice opposition to an oil pipeline that would run from southwest Memphis to northern Mississippi.
Memphis Community Against the Pipeline was planning to hold the rally at Mitchell High School. However, with the weather outside turning uncooperative, the organizers simply moved the rally online.
More than 100 people participated either on Zoom or Facebook, including property owners who don’t want their land used for the pipeline’s construction and others concerned about the environment and Memphis’ drinking water.
Justin J. Pearson, one of the co-founders of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline, was encouraged that so many people were joining forces to oppose the proposed Byhalia Connection.
“This is what coalition-building looks like,” Pearson said.
The Memphis City Council was scheduled to vote Tuesday, Feb. 16, on a resolution expressing the legislative body’s opposition to the project, which would be built by Plains All American Pipeline LP, a Houston-based company.
With weather postponing the council meeting, the vote on the resolution was rescheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 23. Participants at the rally talked about using the extra time to mobilize even more opponents of the project.
“I don’t know how they (Plains) can just walk in and claim eminent domain,” said Scottie Fitzgerald, one of the property owners along the proposed route.
She said the pipeline connecting to the Valero refinery in Memphis wouldn’t benefit local residents, so there would be no public good, which is usually the standard in cases where land is seized through eminent domain.
“You just don’t take from people,” Fitzgerald said. “I don’t think it’s right by any stretch of the word.”
Christopher Pilcher (seen in a Feb. 20, 2020, photo near his rural DeSoto County property) points out where the proposed route of the Byhalia Connection pipeline will run near his property. “Why should our homes be the last homes to be damaged by an outdated and dangerous energy source?” Pilcher asked Monday, Feb. 15. (Jim Weber/Daily Memphian file)
Christopher Pilcher, a DeSoto County resident who owns land along the pipeline’s path, said society needs to be moving away from the use of fossil fuels to combat climate change.
“Why should our homes be the last homes to be damaged by an outdated and dangerous energy source?” Pilcher asked.
Pearson and other speakers said the pipeline isn’t just a problem for those people living along its path. The pipeline would cross above the Memphis Sands aquifer, which supplies drinking water to Memphis and northern Mississippi.
If the pipeline leaks, the oil could pollute the aquifer. Pearson said as little as one pound of oil could foul 25 million gallons of drinking water.
The Sierra Club and another local group, Protect Our Aquifer, have said the pipeline would pass through areas of known or suspected breaches in the aquifer, including a well field that supplies drinking water to southwest Memphis.
On its eastern end, a section of pipeline would cross land where the aquifer rises up to the surface, the groups contend.
“This is all of Memphis’ fight, not just southwest Memphis or South Memphis,” Pearson said.
Batsell Booker, president of the Boxtown Neighborhood Association, opened the rally with a prayer in which he spoke of the importance of protecting the community’s water.
“We need our water,” Booker said. “Water is so important. … Water is the substance of life.”
Speakers included U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen and Council City members Edmund Ford Sr. and Chase Carlisle.
Ford is one of the co-sponsors of the council resolution voicing opposition to the project. He spoke about the need to protect people in his district from being exploited by the company.
Cohen said it would be “foolhardy” to put the city’s drinking water at risk of a pipeline rupture.
“Pipelines don’t do anybody any good except oil companies and pipeline companies,” Cohen said.
Attorney Scott Crosby, who is representing some of the property owners who chose to battle Plains in court rather than selling access to their land, said the project needs to be stopped before construction starts. Once it has been built, the community will be at risk, he said.
“The law is on our side,” Crosby said.
Topics
Byhalia Connection Boxtown Memphis City Council
Blake Fontenay
Blake Fontenay’s 27-year journalism career has taken him to many newspapers in four states. However, he had never returned to work in any of the other cities where he had been before until the opportunity to report for the Daily Memphian presented itself. He covers business for the Daily Memphian.
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