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ROCKY MOUNT — An angry Glenn Frith confronted surveyors for the Mountain Valley Pipeline project when they came on his posted land in July without his permission to stake a route for the proposed 42-inch diameter natural gas transmission pipeline.

At the time, neither Frith nor the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office fully understood that a state law allowed the surveyors to proceed without Frith’s consent. Misdemeanor trespassing charges against two surveyors were later dismissed.

Now, in the wake of a Virginia Supreme Court decision Monday not to hear an appeal related to the surveying law, Mountain Valley contractors can return backed by court orders signed by Circuit Court Judge James Reynolds to survey two of Frith’s properties in Franklin County and the properties of three other county landowners who initially denied access to surveyors.

Mountain Valley had sued Frith and the others, seeking a court order to confirm the company’s right to survey the properties without the owner’s consent — a right Mountain Valley said the law conveyed even without such an order.

Efforts to overturn the relevant state law, 56-49.01, have been unsuccessful to date in cases heard in both federal and state courts. An attempt to repeal the law failed during this session of the General Assembly.