CHRISTIANSBURG â Two nonviolent protesters must serve a day in jail for every day they spent in tree stands blocking the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a Montgomery County judge ruled Wednesday. For Alexander Samuel Parker Lowe, who occupied the so-called Yellow Finch tree-sit from Nov. 16, 2020, to when he was removed by state police March 24, that worked out to a 254-day jail sentence. For Claire Marian Fiocco, who went up in a tree Jan. 3 and was extracted March 23, the sentence was 158 days. The case pitted the tree sittersâ right to protest a controversial natural gas pipeline against Mountain Valleyâs legal authority to cut trees and plow a trench for its buried pipe through a forest near Elliston.