WAYNESBORO - Becci Harmon of Swoope clutched a small pastel painting on her lap.
The canvas showed a large hand hovering ominously over and about to snatch a tiny red house. The spark coming from the outstretched index finger made obvious the reference to Dominion Energy’s former corporate logo.
The red house represented Harmon’s home. Though Harmon has successfully fought to save her one acre property from the path of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, on Wednesday morning she was supporting those for whom the struggle has reached their front lawns.
Harmon joined about 50 other people in the basement room of the Waynesboro Public Library to listen to the story of Theresa “Red” Terry, a Roanoke County resident who occupied a tree in an attempt the stop a court-ordered forced easement by eminent domain through her property for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Terry’s protest made international news and catapulted the fight of those in western Virginia against two encroaching natural gas pipeline projects into the national spotlight. The event was sponsored by RISE Waynesboro, a community action group, and Friends of Augusta, a local pipeline opposition group.
“This is why we’re here,” RISE’s environmental justice team manager Jennifer Trippeer, started the meeting by announcing as she poured a glass of water. “This is what we’re fighting for.”
“In Augusta County we’re the headwaters and we need to protect those waters for everyone downstream from us,” said Jennifer Lewis, founder of Friends of Augusta.
Terry and her daughter entered carrying a sign that read “Russian Trolls,” a reference to Dominion Energy spokesperson David Botkin’s re-tweet earlier this week of an article from online news site Bacon’s Rebellion that discussed Russian involvement in U.S. environmental movements.
“Stand with Red. Stand with Red,” the crowd began to chant as Red Terry took the microphone.
“I’m the crazy lady in the tree that got fed up with the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” Terry stated to introduce herself. “If they’re not going to play by the rules I decided, ‘Why the hell should we?’”
Terry’s fight has been going on for over four years. On April 1, after a judge ruled against her case to stop the pipeline from taking her family's land, she took her place in a tree on the family property in the pipeline’s path to stop the felling of trees that marked the initial stage of construction. She was joined in her protest by her daughter Minor Terry, who occupied another tree.
Nearly five weeks later, on May 4th U.S. District Court Judge Elizabeth Dillon found the Terrys in contempt of the court order allowing pipeline construction to continue on their property, threatening to fine the pair $1,000 a day for every day they stayed in the trees and ignored the order. Her husband, Coles Terry III, was fined $2,000 for his support of the women’s protests. The fines would go to the pipeline company to cover their losses by the delay. The following day, Terry and her daughter, climbed down from their trees. Both women face charges of trespassing and “interfering with property rights” on what was formally their own property.
“We came down Saturday and on Sunday morning they cut down all of our trees,” Minor Terry told the crowd.
Red Terry related how the calls of the wild birds comforted her during her time in the tree and that many of those calls ceased the day the trees were cut down. She described the emotion of seeing the 100-year-old trees topple on the land that has been in her family for generations.
“That’s their playbook – to break people,” she said. “But they’re going to have to try a little bit harder to break me. You can take my trees, but you’re not going to put your pipe in my mountain.”
“People’s lives don’t matter,” she added. “We’ve worked all of our lives to get where we are today. They take everything you’ve worked for and I don’t think we should let them get away with it.”
Their fight, however, will continue on the ground.
Starting on Monday, the Terrys launched their “Takin’ Back Virginia” tour, making appearances around the state, including at Dominion Energy’s shareholder meeting on Wednesday. On Thursday morning they found themselves in a small room ringed by signs that say “Pipeline” with a large, red circle and slash “No” logo over it.
The crowd booed when the name of Governor Ralph Northam came up. When asked what she would say to the governor Red Terry responded “I would like him to stand up and to take care of his voters. Quit bending over for the power and gas companies and stand up for your people.”
The Terrys’ speech is of particular interest to Augusta County residents, who face their own pipeline project. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline will cross nearly 60 miles of the county with a 42-inch high pressure pipe, on its way to North Carolina. It will require a 125-foot-wide construction zone, followed by a permanent 75-foot easement.
Proponents of the pipeline and government officials argue that the project has undergone the most extensive scrutiny and regulation ever. In an April press release Dominion claimed protests and delays “will cost consumers and businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in higher energy costs.”
“Who would have thought four years ago we would still be in the fight and that there would be no pipeline in the ground,” Nancy Sorrells, of the Augusta County Alliance asked the crowd? “These pipelines are no done deals and we need to keep fighting. We’re on the right side of history. They’re on the wrong side. Eminent domain for private gain is unpatriotic.”
Middlebrook resident and country-folk singer Robin Williams performed his song “We Don’t Want Your Pipeline” for the crowd, who joined in on the chorus which features the line “Go tell your neighbors. Go tell your friends.” The pipeline opponents plan to do just that.
“The only way we’re going to stop this is if we stand together,” said Beth Deel, an organizer of the Terrys’ tour. “I one hundred percent believe we are going to win this. Keep the energy high. We’re at the tipping point.”