Above Photo: REINHARD TIBURZY / SHUTTERSTOCK
CONESTOGA, Pa. (WHTM) – Mark Clatterbuck hopes a 10-foot wooden stand in a field near Safe Harbor Park in Conestoga Township serves as a focal point.
“We expect there to be a pretty large scale encampment of folks camping out here to stop the pipeline,” he said.
Clatterbuck is part of the group Lancaster Against Pipelines and views the stand as a last effort to oppose the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline.
The pipeline, which is essentially one step away from being built, would transport 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas from shale fields across Pennsylvania. Part of the proposed route for the pipeline runs through Lebanon and Lancaster counties.
“It really comes down to local communities should have the right to protect themselves from projects like this,” Clatterbuck said.
Clatterbuck, working with wife Malinda Harnish Clatterbuck, built the stand and another a half-mile away.
“I love the physical structure to be a symbol of our resolve, to put our bodies here on the line,” Malinda told ABC27 News.
Earlier this week, a spokesman for Williams Partners, the company looking to build the pipeline, told PennLive the group has the right to protest.
Clatterbuck told ABC27 News that every part of the system has failed him.
“We are going to enact civil disobedience, peaceful non-violent but persistent civil disobedience to stop this project,” he said.
Lancaster Against Pipelines is planning a dedication of the stand on Sunday at 2 p.m.