There are no reasons for the Mountain Valley Pipeline

A protest against the Mountain Valley Pipeline project on Sept. 8 in D.C. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)

Regarding the Sept. 9 Metro article “Appalachian, Indigenous activists protest pipeline effort”:

I applaud the hundreds of protesters, who vehemently opposed the Mountain Valley Pipeline project. This 303-mile proposed pipeline involves about 400 stream, river and wetland crossings and comes with a nearly $7 billion price tag. This infrastructure to move fracked gas is a travesty.

Fracking pollutes water and soil. Transporting this fossil-fuel gas involves leaks of methane, especially at the very noisy compressor stations. When this gas is burned for energy, it releases climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases. Fossil fuels adversely affect human health and are responsible for many premature deaths.

This summer has been full of climate disasters: Insidious wildfires, overwhelming heat waves and extreme flooding events have been rampant. A new report details the sea-level rise that is expected in the coming decades. Much of this heartbreak is brought to us by fossil-fuel use.

A sane society would just say no to these fuels, especially when clean options such as wind and solar are available. A sane society would not spend $7 billion on a product shown to be just awful. A sane society would want to protect its water, land and citizenry. How much longer will this abuse continue?

Sally Courtright, Albany, N.Y.