Mountain Valley Pipeline opponents ask Virginia agency to issue stop work order [Video]

On Tuesday in downtown Richmond, a small group of people protested the Mountain Valley Pipeline, intended to deliver natural gas to the Southside, and shouted a new name they thought fitting for the state agency responsible for protecting Virginia’s waterways.

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s acronym, “DEQ,” has taken on a new meaning for Glen Besa, a former director of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club who was among the Richmond protestors.

“We’ve renamed [the] agency ‘Destroying Environmental Quality,’ because that’s what [they’re] doing,” said Besa.

Besa cited numerous violations levied against MVP over the years and a recent fine that he characterized as “chump change” to the company building the pipeline at an estimated cost between $7.5 and $7.6 billion.

The protests — including the one in Richmond and others held across the state at DEQ regional offices in Harrisonburg, Salem and Woodbridge — come after the …