Big Green protesters with names like “Ink,” “Sprout,” “Red,” “Nutty,” “Fern” and “Decard” illegally sat in the tops of trees (or on poles) in Virginia as a tactic to prevent Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from cutting trees along the path of the pipeline. Some of them sat up there for a few days, some for a few weeks, and some for months. Eventually they all came down, as of early June (see All MVP Tree-Sitting Protesters have Now Dropped Back to Earth). The protesters had hoped to “run out the clock” for MVP to cut the trees. Because of threatened and endangered species (primarily bats that roost in trees), MVP was supposed to have all of the trees along the pipeline’s path cut by March 31. The protesters thought if they could forestall tree cutting until after that deadline (a deadline that was previously extended), they could stop progress and give their Big Green brethren more time to litigate the pipeline out of existence before the tree cutting window reopens in late fall. We’re more than happy to report the protesters’ effort to stop MVP tree cutting failed. Why? Because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has just extended the time frame to cut those trees until July 31. All of that sitting for nothing…
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Category: Virginia
Richmond, VA Police Train to Handle Anti-Pipeline Protests
A faux religious group calling itself the Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice (IACJ) is mad that this past Tuesday 27 agencies (many of them police departments) from across the Richmond, VA metro region trained together for a large-scale civil unrest opposing pipelines. Which is totally realistic. The IACJ, a Virginia-based nonprofit 501(c)(3), says it was organized for “supporting resistance to the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline.” Community organizers. Anarchists who refuse to follow the rule of law. That the police in the greater Richmond area are preparing to deal with them is smart. IACJ calls it, “American fascism, state violence, late stage capitalism, state repression.” We call the IACJ not only anti-capitalist, but anti-American. They are the fascists, in the truest sense of the word…
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Quaker “Friends” Turn Unfriendly re Pipelines, Support Illegal Action
Who knew that Quakers, formally known as the “Religious Society of Friends” or “Friends Church,” could be so, well, unfriendly? Turns out the Quakers, who at first blush you might think are conservative, like the Amish, are far-left liberals. At a recent meeting of the Roanoke Friends, the Quakers adopted a statement (below) to “speak out against two natural gas pipelines [Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline] proposed in Virginia, and all pipelines transporting gas extracted by hydraulic fracking. Fracking is a process documented to contaminate air and water with toxic chemicals, accelerating climate change and encouraging our dependence on fossil fuels.” Sorry my Quaker friends, but you just out-and-out lied. Fracking is not documented to contaminate air and water with toxic chemicals. Period. If you have real scientific evidence to the contrary, please produce it. If we take them at their word, the “friendly” Quakers want all pipelines that flow natural gas everywhere–including the ones that feed their own homes (!)–to be shut down. All pipelines, including local utility pipelines that feed the homes of millions of Americans, flow “fracked” gas. Most gas these days is “fracked.” The “friendly” Quakers also state their support of illegal, law-breaking protesters who sit in trees against a judge’s order, to stop work on pipelines. The Quaker Friends in Roanoke have shown themselves to be just one more non-thinking, knee-jerk reacting group of liberals who really don’t know what they’re talking about…
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All MVP Tree-Sitting Protesters have Now Dropped Back to Earth
We’re happy to report that “Fern” and “Decard” have joined “Ink,” “Sprout,” “Red” and “Nutty” back here on Mother Earth. No, we’re not talking about a new Disney “Snow White” remake (Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey, et al). The names we listed are the names of so-called protesters who have been sitting in the tops of trees (or in the case of Fern and Nutty, on top of poles) in Virginia, part of an illegal action to prevent the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. These last two protesters, Fern and Decard, were recently forced down to earth and arrested. Pipeline construction through the areas they once occupied has resumed. Which is good news. This bunch of kooks were making a mockery of our justice system. Nutty was a woman who sat on top of a pole for nearly two months. Yeah, her self-selected nom de guerre was appropriate. She finally came down two weeks ago when she ran out of Snickers bars (see MVP “Nutty” Protester Drops Back to Earth – Out of Food). But around that same time, another woman, Fern, went up a pole about a mile up the road from Nutty (see “Nutty” is as Nutty Does – 2nd MVP Protester Goes Up a Pole in VA). Fern only last a couple of weeks–not nearly as long as her “hero” Nutty. We’re just happy to say that all of the nuts have now dropped to earth and we can put this sad chapter behind us…
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Franklin County, VA Turns Down $200K to Store MV Pipe Equipment
Talk about cutting off a $200,000 nose to spite your face! One of the counties through which the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) will travel is Franklin County, VA. MVP is a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. For more than a year residents in Franklin County have opposed and hassled the MVP project (see Franklin County, VA Landowners Use Sheriff to Eject MVP Surveyors). Over the weekend the last tree-sitting protester, engaging in an illegal attempt to stop the pipeline from coming through Franklin, came down out of the trees (see Last MVP Tree Sitter in Franklin Co. Comes Down, Trees Cut). MVP was and is getting built through the county, but in a childish act of rebellion, three members of the Franklin Board of Supervisors voted to deny MVP the use of 10 acres of county land to temporarily store construction equipment. MVP was willing to pay the county a staggering $200,000–money the county desperately needs. Instead, to make a “statement” by thumbing its nose at MVP, the three supervisors turned down the MVP money and will now soak taxpayers for that revenue instead. We hope the voters of Franklin remember that at the ballot box in November…
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Last MVP Tree Sitter in Franklin Co. Comes Down, Trees Cut
We’ve run out of words to describe just how lunatic (and hypocritical) Big Green radicals are in their quest to stop fossil fuel projects. The last of the tree sitters opposing the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project in Franklin County, Va. who had taken to climbing and living in trees along the pipeline’s path have come down, after a judge charged them with contempt (in federal court, a very serious charge), and after MVP workers began cutting some of the trees close to where they were located. A tree sitter calling himself Ink (like the stuff used in pens) had been living in the trees in Franklin County for the past two weeks. He claims that when MVP workers began cutting branches and tops of trees nearby, some of which were connected to a spiderweb of ropes put there by the protesters, one of the branches hit Ink and scratched him, making him bleed. Poor baby. Here, let us grab a box of Kleenex to wipe away our tears. After Ink came down, another protester went up, calling herself Sprout. She stayed up there for four hours. After Sprout was ordered to appear in court on federal charges, she came down too, ending the tree sitting in Franklin. For now. We believe there may be two “sitters” (one up a tree, one up a pole) left in other locations. These “brave” people who refuse to use their real names and identify themselves go by names like Ink, Sprout, Red and Nutty. Need we say more? Our point: Fight for your cause in court or with regulatory agencies. Don’t take the law into your own hands. We live in a land with laws, not anarchy where everyone does what is right in his own sight. If the actions of these so-called protesters (i.e. illegal law breakers) are left unchallenged, it is the beginning of the end for our society built on the rule of law…
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MVP “Nutty” Protester Drops Back to Earth – Out of Food
The Nut has fallen to the ground–or more properly, gently helped to the ground by members of the U.S. Forest Service. On March 28 an off-her-rocker fossil fuel hater who refuses to give her real name, calling herself “Nutty,” climbed up a jury-rigged pole in the middle of a gravel road running through the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. She’s trying to stop construction vehicles working on the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from using the road to access their legally-permitted construction sites. Her criminal act of lunacy recently inspired another woman to do the same thing (see “Nutty” is as Nutty Does – 2nd MVP Protester Goes Up a Pole in VA). The Forest Service cut off Nutty’s food and water supply back in April by blocking other nuts from passing her supplies. With no food, she decided it was time to come back to earth. After coming down, Nutty was taken to a hospital to be checked out, and given a citation to appear in court to defend her criminal acts. No doubt the “monopod” (pole with ropes to nearby trees) she occupied is already on the ground, cut up into little pieces…
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“Nutty” is as Nutty Does – 2nd MVP Protester Goes Up a Pole in VA
For the past couple of months MDN has kept you informed on the actions of lawbreaking (criminal) protesters who are attempting to block construction of Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). A small number of protesters have climbed trees in Jefferson National Forest, including a woman who climbed up an elaborately erected “monopod”–a pole with a small tree house at the top. The U.S. Forest Service shut down a gravel road leading to the monopod and has kept collaborators out, so they can’t pass her food and water–although the Forest Service is doing that job anyway. Last week the radicals were in court to try and get the Forest Service roadblock lifted so they can ferry supplies to their comrade in arms. What is the woman’s name who’s on the top of the pole and has been there since late March? She won’t give her name, however, she calls herself (no lie), “Nutty.” How apt. Now a second monopod has been erected a mile up the road from the first, and another woman has gone up that pole. Her name is Fern MacDougal. Ms. MacDougal says she was inspired to climb a pole by two people: Nutty, and by David Buckel, the lawyer who in April set himself on fire, killing himself, in order to protest fossil fuels. So, MacDougal’s heroes are someone who calls herself Nutty, and an insane man who committed suicide by fire. We think that’s all you really need to know about Ms. MacDougal…
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Mountain Valley Pipe Continues to Get FERC Approval for Construction
Despite all of the media attention on a handful of protesters who sit in the tops of trees or on top of a poll in order to block construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), the pipeline nonetheless continues to receive regular new permissions from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to construct the actual pipeline and (yes), even to cut trees past the March 31 deadline. The good news is that MVP is on track to be completely built and flowing Marcellus/Utica gas by the end of THIS YEAR! Despite the best efforts of radical protesters and multiple lawsuits by Big Green groups. Recent FERC permissions for MVP include: (1) allow MVP to cut trees in Jefferson National Forest past the March 31 deadline; (2) build parts of the pipeline in Roanoke and Franklin Counties, VA; (3) work 24/7 on building a compressor station in Wetzel County, WV; and (4) build pipeline in Jefferson National Forest, on both the VA and WV sides…
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M-U Region Adding 43% of All New Gas-Fired Electric in 2018
Yesterday the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued a report saying it predicts 32 gigawatts (GW) of new electric generating capacity to come online this year, in 2018. Of that 32 GW, 21 GW (or 66%) will come from new natural gas-fired plants. And of that 21 GW of new gas-fired generation, Pennsylvania alone will generate 5.2 GW, and Maryland and Virginia will each generate 1.9 GW. Put another way, 9 GW out of 21 GW (or 43%) of all new demand for natural gas for power plants is happening right here in the Marcellus/Utica region. As we have observed on many occasions, power generation is a very important source of new demand for abundant and cheap Marcellus/Utica gas…
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Snap: Va. Dems Total Crack with Reality – Call Pipelines “Death Rattle”
A rather juvenile, kindergartenish attitude appears to be taking root in the Democrat Party–at least in the Old Dominion. Dems there have decided that wind and solar, which provide something like 2.9% of all electric generation in the country, should just take over now and that we should stop building any/all pipelines that flow evil, nasty, “yesterday’s energy” called fossil fuels. And on that self-deluding basis, a group of Dems from Roanoke and across the state signed a (blithering idiot) letter to Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam demanding that he just stop both the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline projects in Virginia–federal projects. Of course the Dems are not really THAT stupid. This is a sleazy political calculation–playing to the nutjob base that elects them. States don’t have the right to overrule the federal government. The last time Virginia tried to overrule the federal government was in 1860, and you know how that turned out…
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Grandma Red Comes Down from Tree After Judge Orders $1K/Day Fine
Theresa “Red” Terry (whom we call Grandma Red) and her daughter Minor Terry finally came down from the trees where they were perched since April 2 in an illegal attempt to block Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from cutting the trees. They came down on Saturday after a federal judge said if they stayed past midnight Saturday, they would each be fined $1,000 per day. The money would go to MVP. Red said, “Mountain Valley has taken enough from us…There wasn’t a lot more I could do up there besides show my ass and give them money.” As we previously reported, a number of Virginia lawmakers expressed their support of the Terrys and their flagrant disregard of the law (see Virginia Democrat Lawmakers Side with Lawbreakers in MVP Protest). A crowd of 100 or so gathered on Saturday, complete with six packs of beer, to watch the spectacle of Grandma Red coming down to earth. A sycophantic press was there to fawn all over Red and her daughter…
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Va. State Senator Suing Forest Service for Blocking Illegal Protests
There is nothing mysterious or complex about the actions taken by a Virginia State Senator, Chap Petersen (Democrat from the swamp, the D.C. area). Petersen is a lawyer and has just sued the U.S. Forest Service because the Forest Service is blocking a road in the Jefferson National Forest, which is their RIGHT to do (they manage it), because down that gravel road are several ILLEGAL TRESPASSERS who refuse to come down from trees that need to be cut down to make way for the federally-approved Mountain Valley Pipeline. There’s nothing complex in understanding that Petersen (did we mention he’s a Democrat?) supports lawlessness and anarchy. Imagine that, a lawmaker who supports people that break the laws he makes. How idiotic is that? Here’s the story of how Virginia Dems in high places continue to flout the laws of our country in their quest to retain political power (and contributions) by currying favor with radical Big Green supporters…
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1 MVP Tree Stand Comes Down, VA Gov. Calls Sitters “Unlawful”
An update on the ongoing situation where several radicals are sitting in the tops of trees (or on a platform) to try and stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline from cutting down said trees in order to install the pipeline. There are, by our informal count in sifting through the news, four “tree sits”–with three of them in Virginia and one in West Virginia, along with a “pole sit”–someone perched on top of a pole that is held upright by ropes to nearby trees. The pole sit is in Virginia as well. Democrat politicians in Virginia have by and large supported the illegally trespassing lawbreakers (see Virginia Democrat Lawmakers Side with Lawbreakers in MVP Protest). We pointed out the Dem lawmakers might change their tune if MDN showed up with a tent and camped out in their driveway, trespassing on their land. One can dream. At any rate, the new news is this: One of the tree sitters in Virginia decided to give up the protest. As soon as he/she was on the ground the stand was disassembled and removed by the U.S. Forest Service. So that’s one of the four tree sits gone. Everyone else is still in place. U.S. Senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine (the loser who ran with Hillary) says he supports the lawbreakers. Typical. However, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was more nuanced. Northam tried to have his cake and eat it too. He called the protesters “unlawful” and indicates he doesn’t support them, but then he turned around and said police should continue to feed and protect them. Typical swamp dweller response…
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Outrage: Police Send Pizza & Sandwiches Up Tree to Protesters
This is almost beyond words. Earlier this week MDN reported that arrest warrants had been issued for a 61 year-old woman and her daughter sitting 30 feet up in the top of a tree that needs to come down to make way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (see Arrest Warrant Issued for MVP Tree Sitting “Grandma Red”). Theresa “Red” Terry and her daughter, Theresa Minor Terry (“Jr.”) are illegally trespassing on property (the tree) that now belongs to MVP, via eminent domain. Sometime in the past week or so police began to deny Red’s supporters from passing food and water up the tree. They also have been turning bright lights on the two Theresas during the night, in an effort to deny them sleep and force them down. As the police said: They are meeting the “non-violent protest action” with “non-violent police action.” So what happens when Red and Jr. tell the police they’re hungry and out of food? The police scramble a cop car to the nearest pizza joint and double-time a pizza, and bologna sandwiches, up the tree to the two alleged criminals sitting at the top. To the same two people for which arrest warrants have been issued. We’re confused. Why would the police accommodate two people BREAKING THE LAW BY TRESPASSING? If the police won’t enforce the laws, our country is done. Toast. It will be every man and woman for him/herself–and it won’t be pretty. Selectively enforcing (or not enforcing) the law is not an option. The Roanoke County police guarding the tree should either do their job, or be fired…
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Arrest Warrant Issued for MVP Tree Sitting “Grandma Red”
Enough is enough. It’s time to end the silly charade of a 61 year-old kook sitting 30 feet up in the top of a tree that needs to come down to make way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Mainstream media could no longer maintain the veneer of credibility and continue to intentionally conceal the identity of the woman who would only call herself “Red”–which they did for weeks. No more. Her name is Theresa Terry. She goes by the nickname “Red.” We call her Grandma Red because she’s older (no idea if she’s actually a grandmother or not). Red’s daughter, also named Theresa, is up the same tree with her. The two Theresas are illegally trespassing on property (the tree) that now belongs to MVP, via eminent domain. As we told you on Friday, a group of far-left, liberal Democrat Virginia lawmakers actually support Red’s illegal action (see Virginia Democrat Lawmakers Side with Lawbreakers in MVP Protest). Sometime in the past week or so police began to deny Red’s supporters from passing food and water up the tree. They also turn bright lights on the two Theresas during the night, in an effort to deny them sleep and force them down. As the police say: They are meeting the “non-violent protest action” with “non-violent police action.” Which the radicals, hilariously, claim is “police abuse.” You see, antis can do whatever the heck they want to do–even breaking the law–and it’s righteous and pure as the wind-driven snow. But when you use their own tactics against them, that’s brutal. That’s persecution. That’s police abuse. Here’s an update on Grandma Red and the quest to remove her from her magic tree house 30 feet up in the air…
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