© 2024
Virginia's Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Pipeline Resistance Ride

Photo by Drew Gallagher

Last week, 30 students began an unusual protest – riding bicycles along the path of a proposed natural gas pipeline.  

Kendall King with the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition says protesters wanted to increase public awareness of plans for the 550-mile underground pipeline that would link fracking sites in West Virginia to customers in North Carolina.

“In Augusta we had a film screening. In Nelson we had a community potluck.  We had a program at Yogaville, and now in Richmond we just had a press conference in Monroe Park.  We’re about to have a critical mass bike ride throughout the city and an action at Dominion’s River Rock Festival.”   

King said the group encountered little opposition along the way.

“We see a lot of cars with no pipeline bumper stickers, and we see a lot of signs throughout these country roads.  One of the really great signs by Wintergreen was, ‘Would you put a pipeline through Mt. Rushmore?’”  

Meanwhile, plans for the pipeline are moving forward – the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejecting a request by Virginia’s Senators Kaine and Warner to hold additional public hearings on the project.

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief