Montgomery County, VA — Early Saturday morning, a pipeline fighter locked herself to construction equipment at a Mountain Valley Pipeline work site in eastern Montgomery County, VA. The site is where MVP is preparing to bore under Bradshaw Creek and Road. Banners at the site read, “Doom To The Pipeline” and, “Only You Can Prevent Pipelines.”
Nearby, a rally of nearly 30 people gathered to show their support for the protest. Folks held signs with slogans such as, “No MVP Destruction Zone,” “Protect Our Water,” and “Water You Doing?”
After preventing MVP construction at the site for 7 hours, around 1:15 PM, the person locked to equipment was extracted (cut out of the lock box) and arrested. Virginia State Troopers and Montgomery County Sheriff were present at the site.
The person who took action today stated: “I wouldn’t have done this a month ago. I came in as a friend, an ally from another state with no concrete connection to this fight. But you can’t spend time here without falling in love with the people and the place. You can’t come here and ignore the pain that this pipeline has caused. Ponds have dried up, livestock have died, family lands have been abandoned because people can’t look out their windows without being reminded of the destruction being forced on them by corporations and politicians that don’t care if they live or die. Without wondering if today’s the day that the pipe blows and turns their family to ash. Appalachians have been fighting this pipeline since day one and will keep fighting until it’s stopped for good. Doom to the pipeline.”
Folks have been disrupting MVP construction regularly since construction restarted on July 5th. Many protests have happened on nearby Poor Mountain, where the Yellow Finch Treesits protected some of the last standing trees in the MVP’s path for two and a half years from 2018-2021. At least a dozen work stoppages have occurred work restarted, including walk-ons, rallies and two other lockdown protests.
This area is home to some of the steepest terrain along the pipeline’s path and contains large road, river, and railway crossings. All these obstacles have made this one of the most difficult, dangerous sections of natural gas pipeline in the country.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a 42-inch diameter fracked gas pipeline slated to cross 300 miles of Appalachia. In June 2023, congress passed a law to fast track the MVP, despite the pipeline’s long history of environmental violations and failure to hold on to key permits. People have been resisting the MVP since it was initially proposed and continue to fight this toxic project.