BRUSH MOUNTAIN, Va. (AP) _ A Virginia Tech professor has climbed atop a piece of construction equipment involved in work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline and locked herself to it. The Roanoke Times reports Emily Satterwhite took up her position on an excavator early Thursday on Brush Mountain in Montgomery County. Satterwhite teaches Appalachian studies and has been active in pipeline protests. State police, sheriff’s deputies and officials with the pipeline and the U.S. Forest Service arrived at the scene. According to the newspaper, they advised Satterwhite she would be arrested if she did not come down voluntarily. She responded that she was willing to face the consequences. Satterwhite’s demonstration is the latest direct action protesters have taken against the multistate natural gas pipeline. Earlier this year, a number of opponents stationed themselves in trees along the route.