Natalie Cox, a spokesperson for Mountain Valley Pipeline, said in a written statement that the project developers “strongly disagree” with Barber’s description of the project as sinful, “which we believe is an uninformed and unproductive comment. The MVP project team is proud to be constructing this critical infrastructure project, designed to provide reliable, affordable, clean-burning natural gas to homes and businesses in Virginia and throughout the eastern United States.”
The proposed North Carolina extension was dealt a setback Dec. 3 when Virginia’s State Air Pollution Control Board voted 6-1 against a permit for a gas compressor station that would be located in an area of Pittsylvania County with a higher percentage of Black residents than the state.
Jessica Sims of Henrico County, the Virginia field coordinator with the group Appalachian Voices, helped coordinate the rally and said in an interview that the rejection of the air permit, while specific to the extension, speaks to the volatility of the project.
She said the event was meant “to bring people in solidarity from those communities that have been impacted for now seven years by this unneeded, ruinous project. This is a way to kind of re-frame the narrative.
