The Mountain Valley fracked gas pipeline built through 303 miles of pristine Virginia and West Virginia forests and mountains was all but dead until West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin forced through an amendment in the 2023 debt ceiling law that required completion of the pipeline regardless of any regulatory or judicial rulings against it.
Since then, work on the MVP has gone on at breakneck speed to complete the project. The company first promised it would be done by the end of 2023, then spring of 2024, which is now somewhat in doubt. One reason for the delays is the ongoing nonviolent direct action protests blocking pipeline construction – sometimes more than one a week – organized by the group Appalachians Against Pipelines. The actions involve one or a few people locking down across access roads or directly to machinery used to cut through mountains and under rivers, which activists charge endangers the drinking water of local residents and threatens landslides and explosions.
In one of the latest actions, an 81-year-old elder from Vermont, Karen Bixler, who goes by the name “River,” locked down with a partner to a car placed across the access road to a major West Virginia work site, closing it down for the day. Police charged the pair with one count of obstruction, a misdemeanor. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Bixler about her reasons for risking arrest in the action and what she hopes will bet accomplished.
[Web editor’s note: The audio version of this interview has been edited to fit broadcast time constraints.]
KAREN “RIVER” BIXLER: I’ve seen online videos of these people’s actions and I’ve been really impressed with them, and last summer I met a couple of people from the pipeline and that cinched it – oh, and what really cinched it was they put out a call for old folks, and that was, yeah, okay.
Because sometimes there’s actions and I think I’ll just get in the way because I’m not real agile. I can’t move around real fast, but they put out a call for old folks and I thought, okay, I’m going to this one.
Basically, we blocked a road to a major work site. They’re working on several sites at the same time, but this was one of the big ones. We got there at 5 a.m. and locked down to a car that we had brought in and pretty much straddled the road so no vehicles could get up it, and we had people down below just telling people, “You’re not working today; site’s closed.” The good news down there is that the workers get a paid day off. That makes it a little easier because I always worry when we block people’s access to their livelihood.
And then folks came up and held a rally, held banners, and then a few police officers came up and wandered around and looked at the lockdown and went down to confer. And then a special team – an extraction team – came up and looked at it a little more carefully and went back down. We were singing songs and chanting chants – a very upbeat vibe of the place.
And then the extraction team came back and said, “All right folks, y’all have to leave and if you don’t we’re going to arrest you and you have 20 minutes to get out of here.” So everyone gathered up their signs and banners and went back down and rallied at the bottom of the mountain. We could still hear them; we could hear shouts and music so it was nice just knowing that our folks were near.
I have some medical issues and the street medics spoke to the captain and said they wanted to stay with me because they had concerns for me. He said no way, but he would get his EMTs there. So then we had another half-hour until the EMTs rolled in. Then they took my blood pressure, which was a startling 220.
MELINDA TUHUS: Oh, wow.
KAREN “RIVER” BIXLER: Yeah. And then I had three EMTs standing around me begging, “Please, please, please, let us get you out of here. Let us treat you. This is not good.”
Then a young police officer begging me, “Please, please.”
At some point, I felt a shift in my body and I thought, “Oh, this isn’t good. I felt like I am going into a danger zone as far as my health is concerned.” And so, I unlocked and came away from it. PatPat was still locked in and then they started the actual extraction.
MELINDA TUHUS: Well, it was probably a good thing that you unlocked at that point.
KAREN “RIVER” BIXLER: Yeah.
MELINDA TUHUS: Were you disappointed?
KAREN “RIVER” BIXLER: In the first moment, I was very disappointed. I was very self-flagellating – damn, you didn’t do it. When I got back with my people and thought about it, of course it was the right thing to do.
One of the things I love about politics in this time is there’s more emphasis on taking care of yourself and knowing your own limits. In actions, there’s always the caveat that at any time if this doesn’t feel right, if it’s not okay, you can depart. You don’t have to stick something out just because you said, “Oh, I’m gonna do this.”
And that attitude is very pervasive in this particular campaign. They’re just really aware of the fact that the pipeline’s important and building community is more important.
MELINDA TUHUS: As you know, the pipeline is billions of dollars over budget and years over its expected finish date. So, do you think that by stopping work, I guess for an entire day, that’ll make a difference?
KAREN “RIVER” BIXLER: I think so, because it’s ongoing – they just keep coming back and doing something and stopping them and stopping them again. It’s tremendously expensive for them every time they lose a day of work. It’s such a fragile, fragile landscape. It’s really horrendous the disregard for the natural world.
And it’s also important to keep in mind that it’s part of something so much bigger. This isn’t just a pipeline that happens to be going through, causing environmental problems. It’s part of an overall structure of extraction and exploitation that we see around the world. It’s all coupled. It’s all connected.
For the best listening experience and to never miss an episode, subscribe to Between The Lines on your favorite podcast app or platform: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Castro, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Tunein+ Alexa, Castbox, Overcast, Podfriend, RSS Feed.
Or subscribe to our Between The Lines and Counterpoint Weekly Summary.
