Anti-pipeline activists host concert to send message to energy company

Anti-pipeline activists hosted a concert at Seven Arrows Brewing Company in Waynesboro to support

and send a message to Dominion Power.

Hikers who oppose the pipeline are taking a 150-mile journey from Highland Springs to Buckingham County along the proposed path of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The concert was a way to celebrate the hikers reaching their half-way mark.

"The Atlantic Coast Pipeline has to stop," said Melissa, who is one of the hikers. "It's just such rich, biologically diverse land that will be destroyed."

The proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline is designed to carry natural gas from Virginia to North Carolina, but its 5.5 billion dollar price tag and 600-mile long trail have brought some controversy to the Shenandoah Valley.

Dominion Power, the workhorse behind the pipeline, said construction will create over 17,000 jobs and give Virginia residents access to cleaner air and renewable energy. But the anti-pipeliners says job creation should not come at the cost of what they said is land destruction.

Deborah Kushner, one of the anti-pipeline hikers, said "[The pipeline will] decimate people's lives [and] the physical beauty and heritage of this area."

"It's so much of a threat, I don't see how the benefits could ever outweigh the risks," said Jennifer Lewis, a member of the group Friends of Augusta, who oppose the proposed pipeline.

The walk along the proposed pipeline path is the hikers' way to "demand that Dominion and our governor do something to protect us. This planned pipeline is nothing but an atrocity," said Kushner.

Dominion Power did not make a statement regarding this protest of the pipeline.