McAuliffe said on a radio program last week that, even if he wanted to, he could not stop the pipeline project, which is in the midst of a lengthy environmental review process by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Kelly Trout, a spokeswoman for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said activists want McAuliffe to “take his thumb off the scale” of regulatory decisions on water and air quality permits by state agencies on the pipeline project, which was the focus of the first day of the protest.

“We appreciate that there are many different views on the pipeline,” said Aaron Ruby, a Dominion spokesman. “There are some folks who are opposed. But there are tens of thousands of people and businesses from across Virginia who support this pipeline. And they recognize that this project is vitally important to allowing Virginia to transition to cleaner sources of electricity to provide home heating for a growing population and attract new industries so our economy can grow and we can create good-paying jobs.”

Today’s protest will focus on plans to close coal ash ponds in the state, which have been triggered by new federal regulations governing storage of the waste from coal-fired power generation. Dominion Virginia Power is closing ponds at four facilities, and Appalachian Power is closing ponds at two.