Pipeline Foes Block Survey Crew On Bent Mountain

Monday’s dispute about surveying for a pipeline route across private property on Bent Mountain marked the latest episode of a recurring conflict that heated up more than a year ago. The disputes reared as surveyors began working to identify paths for the deeply controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline and related access roads.

At the heart of the conflict is contention about a state law that allows a natural gas company to survey private property without an owner’s consent as long as the company follows the law’s requirements for providing notification.

Regional law enforcement departments have struggled to nail down how to respond when property owners ask for help.

Kathy Chandler, whose family lives off Green Hollow Drive, helped organize Monday’s survey resistance. Opponents gathered a short distance down the drive from U.S. 221. Around 9 a.m., when a survey crew arrived, Chandler phoned for assistance from the county’s police department.

The survey crew did not attempt to venture farther down the road and agreed to wait for officers.

Sgt. Chris Kuyper and another officer responded. In conversation with Chandler, Kuyper acknowledged that officers have felt some frustration about how to mediate disputes when it appears that a survey crew has provided proper notification but property owners have asked for help.

“In these issues, you might as well take my handcuffs and cuff me behind my back,” Kuyper said.

He noted that police officers tend to prefer handling disputes when the issues are less hazy.

Although the state surveying law has survived court challenges to date, the Virginia Supreme Court has not yet ruled on two appeals of the statute. And on June 9, the court issued a stay on an injunction ordered by Circuit Court Judge David Carson that had barred the Terry family from interfering with surveying of their property on Bent Mountain.

Monday’s conflict was complicated by the reality that Green Hollow Drive is a private road. Chandler told Kuyper that although she had received notice that surveying of her property might occur Monday and Tuesday, she believed other landowners along Green Hollow had not.

“We will stand here and defend our property today,” she said.

Later, Kuyper said the size of the opponents’ crowd played a role in his decision to suggest the crew seek a court order.

Monday’s dispute remained peaceful. But Kuyper said that there is the potential in pipeline-related discord for the conflict to turn heated, and that officers’ primary focus is keeping the peace.

Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for Mountain Valley Pipeline, reacted to Monday’s conflict by citing previous court rulings that have upheld the company’s right to access private properties under the authority of the survey law.

“It’s unfortunate that landowners and others continue to interfere with the important and necessary survey work that is required as part of the regulatory process,” Cox said.

She declined to comment about specific issues tied to Monday’s dispute.

As proposed, the Mountain Valley Pipeline would be a buried 42-inch diameter pipeline transporting natural gas at high pressure from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to Pittsylvania County.

It would burrow through 11 counties in West Virginia and six in Virginia, including Roanoke County. Opposition to the pipeline has been fierce in the Bent Mountain community, and the county’s board of supervisors has opposed the project.

As an interstate pipeline, the 303-mile Mountain Valley project needs approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission before construction can begin.

On June 23, FERC released a final environmental impact statement for the pipeline.

Even so, Cox said the survey work must go on.

“The MVP project team has been simultaneously conducting survey work throughout the FERC review process and will continue to do so,” she said.

If FERC approves the project, Mountain Valley will have access to eminent domain to acquire easements across private properties. The commission currently does not have the quorum necessary to make a decision.

Pipeline foes contend that the project will cause irreparable environmental damage, lower property values and violate private property rights through eminent domain — a process they say will benefit a private company.

Project proponents counter that the pipeline will boost economic development and serve what they describe as the growing demand for natural gas.

Initially, Mountain Valley officials told Roanoke County police that surveyors would not enter or would leave private properties for which they had not obtained permission for entry as long as the landowner was present and opposing the work. The company said it would then seek a court order affirming its right to study the property.

But in the fall of 2016, after Mountain Valley failed to gain access to several properties in the Bent Mountain community, the company revised its policy. Mountain Valley said surveyors would no longer leave properties to which the company felt it had legal access. And the county police department announced that it would not ask the crews to leave.

Pipeline foes then turned to the Virginia State Police, seeking intervention.

On May 8, a state trooper directed a survey crew on Bent Mountain to leave land owned by the Terry family. The crew complied.

A few days later, however, the state police clarified that its officers would no longer ask crews to leave properties if the surveyors appeared to have authority under the law to study the site.

In Franklin County, meanwhile, the sheriff’s office has asked survey crews to leave properties if the landowner has not granted access and to return with a court order.

Regional resistance to the Mountain Valley project started roughly three years ago.