Pipeline-protesting tree-sitters come down, hit the road

Theresa Minor Terry (L) and Theresa "Red" Terry (R) spoke at a
Charlottesville protest. (Daily Progress photo by Zack Wajsgras)

A mother and daughter who camped in trees to block a natural-gas pipeline on their family's Virginia property came down Saturday after a federal judge threatened heavy fines, Gregory Schneider reports for The Washington Post.

Late Friday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon found Theresa "Red" Terry, 61, and her daughter, Theresa Minor Terry, 30, in contempt of a court order that granted the builders of the Mountain Valley Pipeline entry to their land. If they didn't come down by midnight, Dillon ruled, they would be fined $1,000 a day and arrested by federal marshals.

"After the ruling, Coles Terry [Red's husband] said the women would come down. Even if they didn’t mind paying the fines, he said, the judge had directed that the money go to the pipeline builders — a notion that disturbed the Terrys," Schneider reports.

The women came down from the trees shortly after 4 p.m. Friday, but have not given up their protest: both are now leading public protests in the area to demand action from Gov. Ralph Northam and urge the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to report unfavorably on the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines' effect on streams and waterways, Tyler Hammel reports for The Daily Progress in Charlottesville.

At a rally in Charlottesville on Monday, Red Terry was blunt about what she told Northam she wanted: "I told him that I had to grow a set, and it's damn time he did too," she said. "I really think the governor should stop bending over for Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast and stand with the people." The Terrys have planned several other protests around the state.