Virginia landowners are squaring off in court with attorneys representing energy companies over land surveys for a natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina.
 
Attorneys for the landowners were in Augusta County Circuit Court on Wednesday defending their clients' decision to refuse access to their land to surveyors plotting a route for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

The News Leader reports that attorneys for the proposed pipeline's builders cited recent court decisions that backed their right to survey.

The case involves property owners in Stuarts Draft, Churchville, Lynchburg and Roanoke.

Dominion Resources Inc. is teaming up with Duke Energy and other energy partners to build the 550-mile pipeline. It would bring Marcellus shale natural gas to the Southeast.

Federal regulators will have the final say on the route.