Ever since two natural gas pipelines were proposed to traverse Virginia, some people have been trying to stop them. But at every turn, government approvals have been granted and both projects got underway earlier this spring.
In southwest Virginia, much of the tree cutting for the Mountain Valley Pipeline is complete. But the construction phase, slated to begin a few weeks ago, is on hold, mainly because a handful of people have positioned themselves in makeshift shelters, blocking access to workers. They're supported by small garrisons of anti-pipeline sympathizers who soldier on, despite what looks to be inevitable.
"To the best of my knowledge, when pipeline projects have made it to this stage, they have never been stopped. Even the incredibly brilliant complex and powerful resistance at Standing Rock was eventually defeated. David had better odds against Goliath than we do." (Voice on a video from https://www.facebook.com/appalachiansagainstpipelines/)
A few weeks ago, Betty Chancey Hahn came to this section of the Jefferson National Forest not far from the Appalachian Trail to pick up her husband. Doug Chancey had spent 4 nights in a base camp with a rotating group of volunteers, working to get food and water to a woman perched on a mono-pod. Her monopod is a kind of tent, suspended in the trees. And it's blocking access to would be pipeline workers.
Hahn says, "When they start putting pipe in and we see how the erosion and sedimentation is going to affect our water, they may as well be fracking. This puts us in the chain of the whole fracking machine, that all of us, are fighting because, we're so opposed to it."
Greg Chancey looks exhausted and his eyes are shining as he treks slowly down the mountain carrying his pack.
"It's so exhilarating," he says," to be with these activists that are putting their life on the line for all of us."
The Chanceys do not live along the pipeline's route, which runs from of Clarksburg, West Virginia through Chatham, Virginia. But they believe, that they, and many other people who don't, will be badly affected by the pipeline if something isn't done to stop it.
Doug Chancey says, "We need hundreds of people here not just 4 or 5 we need the college students. We need working people on the weekends; bring your children. They need to see the devastation of this forest. When I first saw it, I cried."
While Chancey was on the mountain, he says he spoke with contractors who were working to finish cutting trees before a March 31st deadline.
"And, one worker was a lead man from Northern Cleaning Incorporated. He had the gall to say, right before his crew started cutting trees, that this was the most beautiful country he had ever seen, and he's been all over the country. And he did not see the irony of destroying it in the next 8 hours."
Betty Hahn, who grew up in this area, taught Appalachian studies at Virginia Tech.
"The Appalachian region has long been, what's known as a "sacrifice zone. "We're expected to suffer here to provide resources for the rest of the world"
She explains, "This has been going on for a long time. All you have to do is look at West Virginia. And now Virginia's become one too. We're so close to the Marcellus shale that we're going to become a corridor for these huge dangerous pipelines."
The pipeline company EQT Partners for Mountain Valley continues to remind people that the project has been approved, regulations have been met or will be.
The sense of inevitability, that the pipeline is coming, no matter what they do, has not stopped protestors. Some hold out hope for several court challenges now in process, some related to Virginia's Clean Water Act, others to approvals granted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and dozens of eminent domain cases, yet to be heard. The pipeline companies have made their own challenges, to things like construction delays caused by the protesters in the trees, saying they will only raise the costs of the projects. U.S. Forest Service Officials and area police continue to ask the 4 sitters perched above the pipeline's path, from West Virginia to Bent Mountain in Roanoke, to come down.
