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Protesters Vow to Block Pipeline Under the Potomac

Potomac River
creative commons
Potomac River

HANCOCK, Md. (AP) - Environmental activists are pledging a sustained campaign against a proposed pipeline beneath the Potomac River to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania to West Virginia.

Scores of demonstrators crowded a TransCanada open house Thursday in the western Maryland town of Hancock about the company's Eastern Panhandle Expansion Project.

Russell Mokhiber of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, told the peaceful protesters they can defeat the pipeline.

Spokesman Scott Castleman says the 3.4-mile project would connect a TransCanada pipeline in Pennsylvania to a Mountaineer Gas line in West Virginia by late 2018. He says a Procter & Gamble manufacturing plant under construction near Tabler Station, West Virginia, will boost demand for gas.  

Opponents say a gas leak could taint a drinking-water source for 6 million people, including residents of Washington, D.C., and its suburbs.

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.