Voices Not Heard
Natural Gas Development, Public Discourse, and Power in Wayne County, Pennsylvania
BY
Grace Wildermuth
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Department of Sociology-Anthropology Middlebury College January 31st, 2014
Approved______Chair, Department of Sociology-Anthropology
Voices Not Heard
Natural Gas Development, Public Discourse, and Power in Wayne County, Pennsylvania
Grace Wildermuth
ABSTRACT
As members of the urban and suburban population continue to migrate to rural areas in search of a beautiful landscape and quiet way of life, conflict over the meaning of and ownership over the landscape emerges. New and already established populations tend to have dramatically different conceptions of landscape and environment, leading to struggles in local environmental policy. This research focuses on Wayne County, Pennsylvania and uses a current and polarizing issue, hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, to illuminate these tensions. The prevailing rhetoric put forth predominantly by those who have moved to the area from urban centers and those who come to the area for recreation has dominated the debate due to abundant resources and access to national and local media. This research was conducted in an effort to elevate an alternative rhetoric absent from the political discourse surrounding this issue. I conducted in-depth interviews with predominantly longtime residents who live and work on the landscape in order to understand the meaning they ascribe to hydraulic fracturing for natural gas on the landscape and the conflicts with new or part-time residents the issue has revealed. The interviews were supplemented with various media sources. Overall, I argue that the perspective of those who have not been heard is informed, nuanced, and must be acknowledged in order to accurately meet the needs of the area and allow for a more democratic and equitable discourse.
2 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ...... 4 METHODS...... 5 POSITIONALITY ...... 7 LITERATURE REVIEW...... 8 HYDRAULIC FRACTURING...... 8 POLICY PROCESS ...... 11 NORTHERN WAYNE PROPERTY OWNERS ALLIANCE...... 15 WAYNE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA...... 16 MAP...... 17 RURAL LIFE...... 18 BACK-TO-NATURE MOVEMENT...... 18 AGRARIANISM VS. RURALISM ...... 19 RURAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENVIRONMENTALISM...... 21 VOICES IN POLICY ...... 22 PASTORAL RETREATERS...... 23 DOMINANT IDEOLOGY ...... 23 CHANGES TO THE COMMUNITY...... 24 WHO QUALIFIES AS PART OF THE COMMUNITY?...... 25 ABSENTEE VOICES...... 28 Celebrities ...... 28 Josh Fox...... 30 Urban Centers ...... 33 USERS VS. PRODUCERS ...... 34 THE WATER ISSUE ...... 36 OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY? ...... 38 PERCEIVED RISK ...... 39 PRIVILEGE ...... 41 TOURIST ECONOMY...... 42 WORK VS. LEISURE...... 44 PROPERTY RIGHTS ...... 47 LIVE AND WORKERS...... 48 SACRED MEANING OF THE LAND...... 48 “GREEDY LANDOWNERS”...... 50 “DUMB COUNTRY HICKS”...... 56 RATIONALE FOR SIGNING LEASES ...... 58 REVERSE NIMBY ARGUMENT ...... 58 BENEFITS TO THE COMMUNITY ...... 60 PRESERVING OPEN SPACE...... 62 LAND SUCCESSION...... 64 KEEPING THEIR LAND ...... 65 MOVING FORWARD ...... 66 POLICY ...... 66 FUTURE OUTLOOK...... 71 CONCLUSION ...... 72 WORKS CITED...... 76
3
Introduction
Over the past twenty-five years Wayne County, Pennsylvania has undergone a remarkable transformation that has largely impacted the political atmosphere and culture of the region. As small farms began to struggle and the economy grew weak, land prices fell.
Because of its close proximity to metropolitan areas, the region became an obvious destination for those living in urban centers searching for a pastoral retreat. Tension between longtime residents and newcomers and visitors has been mounting, leading to questions such as “who belongs here?” and “who owns the landscape?” These questions remained unvocalized for years, until a polarizing and place-related issue emerged: hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. Using this current issue, this research aims to explore how certain groups are able to claim ownership of the landscape, and therefore the local political discourse.
As the political process decides whether or not natural gas exploration is allowed to occur in Wayne County, many different people attribute various meanings to the landscape.
Which meanings of the landscape count? Which are reflected in the political process? So far, the political process has reflected the protection of the landscape as a pristine and bucolic space. This perspective of the landscape is one presented by the dominant rhetoric against natural gas drilling, which has been placed at the forefront of the discourse.
Whereas the dominant discourse has been widely presented in the media and in the political process, an alternate perspective has been silenced. This research attempts to
4 elevate the voices of those who represent this alternate perspective, so that a more democratic and equitable conversation may arise.
Methods
This research was completed using a primarily interpretive framework, although some historical analysis was also utilized. Robert R. Alford explains that interpretive arguments “combine an empirical focus on the language and gestures of human interaction with a theoretical concern with their symbolic meanings and how the ongoing social order is negotiated and maintained” (Alford 1998:42). In other words, this research is qualitative in nature, and searches for symbolic meaning within human stories, perceptions, opinions and feelings. The research goal is to ascertain what hydraulic fracturing and the discourse surrounding it means to those who live and work in Wayne County, Pennsylvania.
Historical analysis was used to provide a background in order to understand how the historical context of the situation affects the meanings that respondents ascribe to it.
Primary data for this project consists of twenty in-person interviews collected between August 22nd, 2013 and September 7th, 2013 as well as field notes. Whenever possible, interviews were conducted on the land owned by the respondent, since the concepts of space and place are significant to the project. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, but in order to maintain the confidentiality of respondents, no names or significant descriptors are included in this project. Although qualifiers such as occupation or education would certainly have added strength to this research, careful consideration was taken to maintain the anonymity of respondents. Since vandalism, bullet holes next to bumper stickers, and even death threats have occurred as a result of the contentious
5 debate in the region, sacrificing the anonymity of respondents could jeopardize their safety.
That being said, the lack of description of respondents serves as a necessary shortcoming of this research.
Consent was collected orally from participants before interviews. Due to the fact that the subject of these interviews is highly controversial in nature, I thought that written consent would unnecessarily make people nervous and jeopardize the informal and personal atmosphere necessary for gathering the story of a person and place. Through purposive sampling I gathered interviews from farmers, owners of large parcels of land, local business people, and elected officials. Additional respondents were identified and interviewed through snowball sampling.
In this project, I use the terms “pastoral retreaters” and “live and workers” to categorize the rhetoric of two different groups of people. It’s important to point out that the terms do not necessarily describe the lifestyle of individual people, but rather the perspective from which they make decisions. Furthermore, the topic of this research is a nuanced and complex issue that produces a vast array of different perspectives. However, for the purpose of the clarity of this project, I have identified these two main threads of rhetoric. Because such intricacies exist within each category, it was my goal to let the voices of those I interviewed speak for themselves. The term “live and worker” came from common phrases mentioned in the interviews for this project and rural sociological theory, and the term “pastoral retreater” comes from the idea of a pastoral retreat, born in the romantic or Back-to-Nature movement described below.
I chose to focus this research on the perspective of live and workers after taking into consideration which perspectives are successfully represented in both local and national
6 media, as well as the extent of this project. The opinions and perspectives of pastoral retreaters dominate both locally, through newspapers, environmental groups and rallies, and nationally, through news stations, celebrity-driven political campaigns, and film. I did not find it necessary to include primary data from this perspective in a project of this size due to the fact that it is widely recognized and easily accessible. Instead, I chose to collect primary data exclusively from respondents and media sources that represented a perspective that is not as easily accessible to those seeking to learn more about the discourse surrounding hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.
Positionality
I must begin with acknowledging my positionality as the researcher throughout this project. This research area is my home; where I was raised and where I go home to.
Moreover, I, like those I interviewed, live and work there. My position on the landscape affected my project both positively and negatively. Fortunately, as a member of the community, I was able to rely on that connection to gain access to personal stories and perspectives. However, because I am situated within the category of “live and worker”, objectivity during this research was not possible. However, in an effort to combat this, I chose to highlight the voices of those whom I interviewed, and moderate my own.
On the other hand, my association with Middlebury College sometimes affected participants’ perceptions of my research, primarily because the College has a reputation as a hotbed for environmental activists. Middlebury’s website boasts its environmental leadership, stating “In 1965, Middlebury created the first environmental studies major in the nation. The College has since emerged as a leader in sustainability and environmental action” (Middlebury College 2013). Not only does Middlebury market itself as an
7 environmentally active school, it is also well known as such throughout the country. The
Daily Green, “a consumer’s guide to green,” ranked Middlebury as the fifth greenest college in America and adds that the college is “well known as the home of leading environmental author and activist Bill McKibben” (Howard 2013). The hydraulic fracturing discourse has labeled “environmentalists” as opposed to the extraction of natural gas resources. In other words, the “correct” response from “environmentalists” is to oppose hydraulic fracturing.
My association with an institution with this label may have lead some respondents to assume that I was opposed to natural gas extraction and therefore not sympathetic to what they had to say.
Literature Review Hydraulic Fracturing
Several decades ago, geologists documented the presence of large natural gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale formation. The Marcellus Shale reserve covers 48,000 square miles and lies primarily under four states: West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
New York (Negro 2012). Recently, technological advancements, including hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, have made it possible to access this resource economically
(Brasier et al. 2011:33). Hydraulic fracturing is a term used to describe the process whereby water mixed with sand and chemicals is injected at high pressure into small crevices in order to release natural gas from holding pockets and bring it to the surface
(Ferguson & Smith 2012: 498). Pennsylvania and New York have become “fracking” hotspots due to their abundance of the resource and media coverage of the area in popular documentaries such as Gasland (Rabe & Borick 2012:4). Emotionally charged “anti-
8 fracking” media coverage and headlines, as well as the great economic opportunity presented by the issue, have led to a great diversity of opinions, perspectives and positions on hydraulic fracturing in the area. Jason L. Weigle states, “In less than half a decade,
Marcellus Shale development has become one of the most polarizing events Pennsylvania has ever experienced” (2010:3).
Conflicting information and a lack of peer-reviewed research allow for both sides of the debate to make claims of supporting “facts and figures”. For instance, Howarth and
Ingraffea report that many of the additives in the fluid injected into the shale formation for hydraulic fracturing are toxic, carcinogenic or mutagenic and are kept secret (2011:272).
However, Engelder states that many of the additives are common in household products and encountered in people’s everyday lives and that the industry discloses the additives used on a website run by regulators (2011:275). Similar discussion is held around the methane contamination of groundwater and drinking water. While Howarth and Ingraffea site a study in which it was found that 75% of wells sampled in the vicinity of active drilling in Pennsylvania were contaminated with methane from the deep shale deposits
(2011:273), Engelder explains that this is due to natural hydraulic fracturing that industrial fracking tries to replicate and enhance, that wells have contained natural gas from these deposits long before drilling began, and that methane can be consumed without negative effects (2011:275).
Opponents of hydraulic fracturing also raise concerns over the contamination of groundwater due to the chemicals in the fracking fluid seeping up from shale deposits to the aquifer (Engelder 2011:275). However, Arthur et al. states, “shale is a natural barrier to the vertical migration of fluids…the multiple shale zones present between the Marcellus
9 Shale and shallow groundwater zones in much of the development area provides protection of groundwater resources” (2008:14). Similarly, Fisher states that the Ground
Water Protection Council’s survey found no documented cases of contaminated drinking water caused by hydraulic fracturing for natural gas (2010:2). Conflicting information on the topic and a large media presence lead to a large range of opinions and perspectives on the topic.
Proponents of natural gas development often point out the economic incentives to landowners and communities. As the rest of the country felt the full force of the recession, areas of rural Pennsylvania began to flourish. In 2009, Hess and Newfield Corporation had joined forces to begin handing out leases. Land prices rose from $2,000 to $10,000 per acre in a little over five years, and some landowners were receiving as much as $3,000 per acre for the leasing of their mineral rights (Farzad 2012). Jason L. Weigle suggests that,
“unheralded wealth, income, jobs, philanthropy and economic development opportunities are finding corners of the state often left behind by modern development” (2011:3).
According to a Penn State University study, the hydraulic fracturing industry added
21,000 jobs in Pennsylvania by 2009, with the promise to add many more in the near future (Rabe & Borick 2012:6). Currie & Stelle also point out, “Those who need the jobs most are being put to work, as much of the drilling activity is occurring in the rural, economically depressed areas of Pennsylvania” (2010). However, although the mineral rights that are sold to gas companies in the leasing process come with property ownership and can legally be sold by the property owner, state regulations have the ability to restrict the development of those mineral rights (Bernstein & Cleland 2012:4).
10 However, as proponents of natural gas sang its praises, opposition to the practice of
“fracking” began to spread. In 2008, documentary filmmaker Josh Fox produced the anti- fracking documentary Gasland. Emotionally charged images such as residents lighting their kitchen faucets on fire and dead cows in farm fields triggered Americans to take interest
(Farzad 2012). Many people against hydraulic fracturing claim a possible connection between the practice and the contamination of groundwater and drinking wells (McKay et al. 2011). Scientific studies administered by the EPA have dismissed this claim, but some find that the studies were inconclusive or inadequate. With so many people voicing environmental fears surrounding the practice, regulators and politicians were forced to take note.
Policy Process
Adding fuel to the natural gas controversy is the lack of clarity over who should regulate it. Currently, “fracking” is exempt from regulation from the Safe Drinking Water
Act in most cases. Because of this lack of federal jurisdiction, states have been placed in charge of regulating drilling for natural gas within their own borders (Negro 2012). Gas companies must apply to the state in order to receive approval for a drilling permit.
Additionally, Governor Rendell signed into law a bill that requires all well operators to submit frequent reports to disclose how much gas is being produced. The same bill requires the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to post drilling data online to make previously confidential production information available to everyone
(Bagnell 2011). Recently, in addition to state regulation, well operators have been ordered to receive permits from the Delaware River Basin Commission (Currie & Stelle 2010).
11 The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) was formed in 1961 when President
Kennedy created a partnership with the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware in order to manage the Delaware River watershed (StateImpact 2013). Along with the four governors, a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also serves as a member of the commission. The DRBC is in charge of water quality protection, water supply allocation, and permitting in the Delaware River Basin (Bagnell 2011). The staff of
DRBC includes hydrogeologists and water resource engineers and has historically conducted its duties with relatively little notice from the public. However, the introduction of the natural gas industry has changed that. Marcellus Shale natural gas deposits exist beneath about one-third of the Delaware River Basin, especially the parts in New York and
Pennsylvania. In May of 2009, the executive director of the Delaware River Basin
Commission, Carol R. Collier, made an announcement that was to attract the full attention of the public from all sides (StateImpact 2013).
In May of 2009, the DRBC announced that natural gas producers could not operate natural gas wells that lie within the Delaware River Basin without first applying for and receiving their approval. Additionally, they announced that they would not be approving any applications until they had created a new set of regulations on the practice of unconventional natural gas extraction in the basin. The executive director of the DRBC explained, “natural gas extraction projects in the Marcellus Shale formation areas of the basin may individually or cumulatively affect the water quality…by altering…physical, biological, chemical or hydrological characteristics of water in those areas” (McKay et al.
2011). The DRBC moratorium prevents drilling in Wayne and Pike Counties in
12 Pennsylvania, as well as parts of southern New York and takes precedence over state regulations (StateImpact 2013).
In 2010, a first set of draft regulations was released by the DRBC that required all gas operators who receive their approval to report to them any situations that may lead to a violation or any complaint that they receive regarding their operation. In addition, the regulations required operators to mitigate impacts to any ground or surface water affected because of their project (McKay et al. 2011). At first the moratorium did not apply to water withdrawal applications or exploratory wells. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network, a downstream environmental group associated with the watershed, reported that it was
“vigorously protesting” this oversight (Delaware RiverKeeper Network 2010). Just a few months later in June of 2010, DRBC executive director Collier announced that exploratory wells would be included in the moratorium due to the “risks to water resources, including ground and surface water that the land disturbance and drilling activities inherent in any shale gas well pose” (DRBC Home Page).
The DRBC’s proposals were then open to public comment and review, and received an extraordinary amount of responses from both sides of the issue, more than 60,000 public comments. After reviewing these comments, the DRBC released its revised regulations in November of 2011. The commission planned to meet on November 21, 2011 to vote on the new regulations. Just days before the vote, the governor of Delaware announced that he would be voting against the proposals, adding that he, along with many environmental groups, urged the DRBC to complete an environmental impact study before approving any regulations. In fact, in May the New York Attorney General and environmental groups filed separate lawsuits against the DRBC claiming that they were
13 required under the National Environmental Policy Act to conduct a more thorough environmental review before implementing regulations (StateImpact 2013). At the same time, Gasland producer Josh Fox announced that he planned to attend the meeting with thousands of protestors (Farzad 2012). Either one or all of these threats caused the DRBC to cancel the meeting, and over two years later the commission has yet to make another move on the issue (StateImpact 2013).
As fracking continues in most of Pennsylvania, residents of Wayne County (Pike
County is also in the moratorium but has few leases) have been denied their ability to develop their mineral rights. Wayne is the only county in Pennsylvania with large deposits of economically viable natural gas that is currently under a moratorium. While at first environmental groups celebrated the moratorium put in place by the DRBC, they have since turned to criticizing the commission for not doing a more thorough environmental impact study or proposing more stringent regulations (StateImpact 2013). The Delaware
RiverKeeper wrote, “The DRBC has taken a sensible and laudable step today…. The public fought for this ‘pause button’ and the DRBC listened. We will continue to fight for a full moratorium” (DRBC Home Page). On the other hand, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett released a statement on the cancellation of the meeting to vote on the new regulations:
“Today’s delay – driven more by politics than sound science – is a decision to put off the creation of much-needed jobs, to put off securing our energy independence, and to infringe upon the property rights of thousands of Pennsylvanians” (Walsh 2011).
The natural gas industry strongly opposed the moratorium placed by the Delaware
River Basin Commission and challenged the DRBC’s authority to require their approval in addition to approval for state drilling permits (McKay et al. 2011). At first, gas companies
14 invoked force majeure clauses to put their contracts with property owners on hold in the area affected by the moratorium (Farzad 2012). Without the ability to gain approval from the DRBC, the gas industry has been denied the ability to access the mineral rights that they have already paid for or get a return on the substantial investments that they have already made in the area. However, with such economic promise for development of the resource elsewhere without the added blockade, the industry has chosen to simply give up on the area, dropping the leases of most Wayne County residents.
Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance
A considerable portion of the acreage leased in Wayne County is part of the
Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance (NWPOA). The NWPOA is a group of more than
1,300 landowners, representing over 100,000 acres, who decided to pool their expertise in order to draft their own lease instead of signing one provided by a gas company. Members include university professors, lawyers, geologists, conservationists, and farmers. The
NWPOA spent four years attending seminars on gas drilling, interviewing leading academics, listening to arguments against natural gas development, and hearing stories from other parts of the country. The Alliance concluded that safe and responsible gas drilling was possible, and decided that they would sign a lease if they felt that it adequately protected the environment. The Alliance hired a lawyer that specializes in Environmental
Law in order to help draft the lease, and members signed leases in 2009 (NWPOA About
Us).
The NWPOA’s mission, according to the group’s website, is “to serve as an advocate for local landowners with oil and gas producers. We assist in securing arrangements that protect our property, community and environment and provide support during exploration
15 and production activities” (NWPOA Home Page). Due to the DRBC moratorium, natural gas was never extracted, and in the summer of 2013, the NWPOA members received notice that their leases had been dropped. Members never received royalties or the final installment of their signing bonus.
Wayne County, Pennsylvania
Wayne County is located in the northeastern-most part of the state and shares a border with New York State. Aside from a few small towns, most of the county is covered in rural farm and forestland. Compared to just 21.3% of Pennsylvania’s total population
78.7% of Wayne County residents reside in a rural setting. (Pennsylvania State Data Center
2013:8). The region has an abundance of natural resources and a bucolic landscape, yet a financially struggling population. Many use the term “land rich, cash poor” to describe the area. The median household income in Wayne County from 2007 to 2011 was $49,020
(Pennsylvania State Data Center 2013:63). In a 2008 resident survey conducted by the
Wayne County Planning Commission, residents reported the top five most important characteristics of Wayne County as, in order: overall quality of life, slower pace of life, scenic landscapes, close to relatives, and lack of congestion (Wayne County Planning
Commission-A 2010:5).
Out of more than 31,500 total housing units in the county, over 12,000 of those are vacant. More than 11,000 of those are listed as “for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use” (Pennsylvania State Data Center 2013:25). According to a 2008 survey of those with vacation homes in Wayne County, the most popular reason for the purchase of a second home is weekend recreation, followed by vacations (Wayne County Planning Commission-
B 2010:5). More than half (57%) of the respondents in the survey never plan to reside full-
16 Map
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Figure 1- A map of the Pennsylvania/New York/New Jersey area: The Delaware River Basin is outlined in purple, and black arrows show distances from Wayne County to New York City and Philadelphia.
17 time in Wayne County (Wayne County Planning Commission-B 2010:9). The top five reasons for the purchase of a second home were reported as, in order: scenic landscapes, slower pace of life, Lake Wallenpaupack, recreation, and lack of congestion (Wayne County
Planning Commission-B 2010:11).
Rural Life
Research in the field of rural sociology suggests vast disparities between the romanticized version of rural life often sought by the Back-to-Nature movement and reality. According to Willits, Bealer and Timbers, “rural persons have been characterized as the ‘people left behind’ outside the mainstream of American culture and affluence”
(1990:562). They go on to quote a description of the realities of rural poverty from the
National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty that calls rural poverty a “national disgrace” and mentions problems such as unemployment and underemployment, lack of educational opportunities, and a lack of opportunities to revitalize communities. The authors point out that, “These latter descriptions are far removed from the romantic, pastoral picture of the rural life sketched by some writers” and then add, “In popular culture, other images persist of rural persons as ‘hicks,’ ‘hayseeds,’ and ‘country bumpkins’ unable to cope with ever-changing physical and social forces—tragic victims, comical misfits, and prejudiced reactionaries in a modern world” (Willets et al. 1990:562).
Back-to-Nature Movement
The Back-to-Nature movement brought new people, ideas and ways of life to the rural landscape. Buttel and Flinn suggest that the movement came from romanticism, which viewed rural life as the perfect balance between the wilderness and an urban setting.
18 Romanticism changed nature to Nature (1977:545). A study in Appalachia confirmed this idea, and suggested that respondents moved to rural areas for “quality-of-life reasons” and its biophysical environment. They also deducted that because the physical environment was a more important factor than economic considerations, those who had moved to the area were “willing and able to trade off income for better environmental conditions”. The authors added that those who moved into the area as part of this movement are generally
“better educated, more affluent, are less likely to be associated with extractive-based industries, and own less rural land” than long-time residents (Jones et al. 2003:234).
Buttel and Flinn carefully point out that the country life sought after by the Back-to-
Nature movement is starkly different than traditional country life. They explain,
Historically, the notion of a genteel rural life—thought to be clearly superior to agriculture and the country bumpkin—has been most prevalent among the society’s upper-middle class. This group has defined ‘country living’ as the highest expression of cultured society. Living in the country, without being of it, allowed the charms of Nature to gratify and illume, but not disturb, one’s cosmopolitan sense (1977:545).
The effort to distance this way of life from an agrarian one ultimately distanced this new group of people from an often predominantly agricultural landscape that they sought.
“Nostalgia for an agrarian past played no part in romantic thinking; inevitably rejected a mythology that exalted men who lived off the land,” add Buttel and Flinn (1977:545). This statement distinguishes the Back-to-Nature movement from the Back-to-the-Land one that has gained momentum at different times in various areas of the country.
Agrarianism vs. Ruralism
Many authors point out agrarianism and ruralism produce different conceptions of natural resources and the environment. Buttel and Flinn suggest that agrarian values tend
19 to produce a relatively utilitarian view of the natural environment, whereas ruralism produces one more based on protection and concern (1977:553). Although the research emphasizes the utilitarian aspect of agrarianism, it often fails to point out that agriculture and resource-extraction activities are produced by one group of people but consumed by all. In other words, Back-to-Nature followers may have a concerned and protective view of the environment, but they consume the products of agrarianism. Buttel and Flinn skirt around this tension, but do point out that “the agrarian, steeped in the virtues of hard work and honest toil, often despised the ruralist dilettante. Most farmers lacked the funds and leisure time for arcadian country living” (1977:546). Here, they begin to explore disparities between the two groups in matters of socioeconomics, lifestyle, and culture.
How the two groups of people view each other influences how they interact and how policy is formed. Buttel and Flinn point out that “This utilitarian value could make the farmer a soulless plunderer in the eyes of the ruralist, who found elevation—not mere economic sustenance—in the country” (1977:546). This concept of a group of people that do not need to make a living off of the land entering the landscape on which many do may be one of the principal factors in causing the tension noted by many authors. Although
Buttel and Flinn wrote over thirty years ago, their findings are easily applied today to more modern controversies. For example, they pointed out that “farmers are forced to defend pesticide usage and their autonomy of decision making concerning land use over the objections of ‘outsiders’ seeking to preserve tranquility and environmental quality”
(1977:546). This literature remains relevant today, as the “autonomy of decision making concerning land use” requires defense on other matters, such as signing a natural gas lease.
20 Jones et al. explained the ‘gangplank’ hypothesis that assumes conflict will occur in rural communities facing growth and development between longtime residents and newcomers. They explain,
Newcomers are more opposed to future population growth and development than long-standing residents because they are more likely to see their area as a place of refuge from the negative impacts of growth and development experienced in their previous place of residence. Consequently, newcomers are thought to be more willing to pull up the gangplank (or drawbridge) on any new growth and development that is trying to ‘invade’ their rural refuge (2003:225).
Again, the literature makes distinctions between the landscape as a “refuge” and a livelihood, a difference of perspective that complicates rural environmental attitudes and policy.
Rural Attitudes Towards Environmentalism
McBeth points out, “Rural residents are rarely ‘environmentalists’ of the type who belong to the Sierra Club or other environmental groups. On the contrary, rural attitudes tend to be skeptical of the environmental activist”. He adds, “This contradiction may seem illogical, since the environmental activist and the rural resident share a common value (the love of nature)” (1995:40). Due to the fact that the rural populations’ environmental attitudes tend to be, “skeptical of the environmental activist”, they have been portrayed as unsupportive of the larger environmental movement. Two main theories have been used to describe this attitude: the extractive resource-commodity theory and the conservative nonelite theory.
McBeth explains the extractive resource-commodity theory: “since rural populations rely heavily on natural resources, rural citizens value the economic potential of these resources rather than their inherent aesthetics” (1995:41). This theory lacks,
21 however, in its failure to distinguish between relying on a resource for income and for sustenance. While rural populations rely heavily on producing natural resources for an income, urban and suburban populations rely just as heavily on the actual resources for sustenance as the rural population. McBeth’s small study of rural Idaho communities also challenges the extractive resource-commodity theory. He found that, as opposed to the popular belief that rural communities are anti-environment and pro-growth, they held
“moderate environmental and economic views” (1995:47).
The second theory, the conservative nonelite theory, “asserts that rural citizens are normally lower in income, less educated, older, and more politically conservative than the environmental activist. As a result, the rural resident is imagined by environmentalists to be anti-environmental” states McBeth. He goes on, “But those environmentalists may be viewed as social elitists who are out of touch with the economic realities of small-town life; this does not imply that rural people express no environmental attitudes” (1995:41). Buttel and Flinn add support that environmentalists are sometimes considered “out of touch with the economic realities of small-town life”. They mention that several studies have found education level to predict environmental values. Usually, it is argued that “well-educated groups have largely solved personal economic problems and are free to devote interest to the less fundamental aspects of human existence” whereas those with less formal education tend to be worrying about providing the basic needs of life and are wary of policy that may make that more difficult (1977:547).
Voices in Policy
The two major aforementioned perceptions of landscape and environmentalism are not always equally represented in local policy. McBeth points out that leaders of interest
22 groups, such as environmental organizations, tend to dominate the rural political process.
He states, “Because rural citizens are given inadequate voice in the policy process, those newcomers who express environmental attitudes are taken to be unconcerned about economic development and survival” (1995:40). McBeth argues for turning rural policy over to the longtime residents. He explains, “Removing rural policy from the hands of the elite may be the most successful way to maintain a pristine natural environment while building a strong rural economy”. He again points out what the data had shown, “Residents understand the trade-offs between environmental preservation and economic development. They prefer, however, to tread a centrist path, favoring economic development that is not necessarily hostile to a clean environment” (1995:47).
Pastoral Retreaters Dominant Ideology
The dominant ideology put forth by pastoral retreaters in response to the possibility of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the region can be best represented by two sources,
Gasland and The Delaware Riverkeeper Network. The first, Gasland, is an Oscar-nominated
2010 documentary written and directed by Josh Fox. The trailer for the film shows Fox traveling throughout the country to speak to those who explain that they have been negatively affected by hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. According to the Gasland website, “When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. Fox reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire” (Gasland Website 2010). The trailer features Fox’s voice explaining, “Everywhere I went, it was the same story: water
23 trouble, health problems, hazardous explosive conditions inside the house…” (Gasland
Trailer 2010). Gasland features Dimock, Pennsylvania, a small town in Wayne County’s neighboring Susquehanna County.
While Gasland is a nationally celebrated documentary, the second representation of the dominant ideology is a regional nonprofit membership organization: The Delaware
Riverkeeper Network. The organization has a relationship with Josh Fox, often attending local rallies and events together, as well as appearing in photographs and videos together.
On their website, they state, “The environmental impacts of natural gas drilling include water quantity, water quality, and storm water runoff, habitat destruction and disruption, noise, air quality and community/cultural, scenic and quality of life impacts”. The website adds that their mission is to “take action to defend our region from the degradation of shale gas drilling. We can’t let this happen here—we cannot sacrifice our water and environment to gas companies” (Delaware Riverkeeper Network Ongoing Issues). The Delaware
Riverkeeper Network is located near Philadelphia, over one hundred miles south of Wayne
County. However, since their interest is the Delaware River, Wayne County and the headwaters of the river are often discussed by the organization.
Changes to the community
Long-time residents of Wayne County are acutely aware of the simultaneous decline of family farms and influx of people from urban areas. One farm-owner explained, “Dairy cows used to be in all of these fields. And I'm not even sure where the nearest dairy cow is as far as the black and white Holstein. I mean you just don't see them dotting the fields like you used to when we were kids. But you see a lot of New Yorkers. [Laughs]” (Respondent
2). This statement highlights the replacement of active farms with second and vacation
24 homes, and therefore the influx of non-native residents. One farmer explained, “I know several people who just turned around and sold their farms and broke them up into small developments… And I go places now that I say ‘Oh God, I remember this being a farm and now there’s twenty houses on it.’ And it’s the only way for these people to survive”
(Respondent 11). The integration of a group of people with different conceptions of the landscape and different ways of life has complicated the social atmosphere of the area. I was told,
All the properties, a lot of them had been in the families for years. Now there are very few locals left. Most of the people are from New Jersey or New York…. And people come up here and they will buy a house on a dirt road. And they buy it because it is less expensive and they want the quiet. Then they go to the township meetings and complain bitterly that it’s dusty and they want streetlights. And the township supervisors say, ‘look if you want street lights and a paved road, then go back to wherever you came from’ (Respondent 12).
Tension has long been building as long-term residents attempt to hold on to the culture of the place that their families have called home for generations.
Who qualifies as part of the community?
Although uncertainty has existed for years, with the introduction of a polarizing issue like natural gas development, residents have begun to approach the question, “who counts as part of this community” with more urgency. As the live and workers struggle to claim a voice alongside the pastoral retreaters in the community discourse, they struggle to define what conditions qualify someone as a part of the community, and therefore give them a voice in the discussion. Many live and workers explain that although the pastoral retreaters may live in the area, they are not, in many cases, a part of the local community.
One farmer explained, “They live in their world and we live in ours, but they don’t mix.” He
25 clarified, “I don’t like to stereotype city people, because there are a lot of folks from New
York or New Jersey who moved into the area here… and a good many of those folks are good friends of mine” (Respondent 13). As this statement suggests, some pastoral retreaters have integrated and are now considered active members of the community, interacting and forming relationships with their live and work neighbors. In general, those that have done this support natural gas development, perhaps because their perspective now includes the needs of their neighbors and the local community. Some of the respondents in this research may once have been considered pastoral retreaters, yet expressed views consistent with live and workers.
Many live and workers with whom I spoke explained that they had never before been aware of their pastoral retreater neighbors before they began to vocalize their position in the natural gas discourse. One stated, “The funny thing is that most of the people that are so opposed to it here, most of the people in our community had never even heard of these people or ever seen them before because they weren’t really parts of our community…. They’re kind of their own little world” (Respondent 13). The distinction is made between being “here”, as in the geographical location, and being “in our community” in order to create boundaries between those who “belong” in the conversation and those who don’t. He refers to pastoral retreaters as being “here” physically, while he refers to the live and workers as “in our community”.
As another live and worker pointed out, some aren’t even physically here. He says, “I know properties in this area where people visit once or twice a year. And to have properties… that you never see is strange to me because I can’t see the benefit of owning something that you never see or set foot on. Unless it’s just so that you can say that you did”
26 (Respondent 4). For multi-generational landowners, occasional-use land ownership makes little sense, possibly because it seems so financially out of reach, and a lack of use is often equated with a lack of care. For the same reason, when those landowners begin to vocalize their opinion on natural gas development and have their voices heard, many live and workers’ immediate reaction is to question the weight that their voices carry. “You have a lot of people who basically grew up in cities or out of the area and they might live here now but they don’t have a true connection to the land or a true connection to how things really work” (Respondent 13). The concept of a “true connection” to the land is one often used to attempt to legitimize or deny the relevance of stakeholders, and relies upon the differentiation between agrarianism and ruralism explored in the literature, working on the landscape as opposed to observing it.
Several interviewees made sure to point out the difference in acreage as a measure of who should be given a voice in the discourse. One respondent pointed out, “It’s like eighty, ninety even percent of the acreage up there all willing to be under lease. When we did a study of a petition by these guys and somebody went and looked at where they all came from and who they were and how much land they had, they had a total of 179 acres”
(Respondent 8). In a county with an area of 751 square miles, or 480,640 acres, that land mass is just three hundredths of a percent of the total land. Live and workers often point to the lack of acreage of pastoral retreaters as a way to question the weight of their voices.
27 Absentee Voices
Celebrities
A sentiment shared by many live and workers is that a group of people that is not part of their community, and certainly does not understand it, has been given a voice that may decide the future of all who live there. This problem is compounded when people who have never lived in or perhaps even visited the area are given a prominent voice in the discourse. One live and worker admitted, “The most disturbing part of it is probably that there is the Hollywood influence. There are people whom I know only by name, having seen them on television.” He then added, “Just because their name was on the screen still doesn’t mean that their I.Q. is any higher than anybody else’s. And that’s the problem we have here” (Respondent 4). Although celebrities like Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Susan
Sarandon, Yoko Ono, and Sean Lennon, to name a few, don’t seem to have any connection to the geographic location at hand, their prominent position in society has allowed them to dictate the dominant ideology of the issue. A farmer explains,
Through these people like Yoko Ono who have masses of people who will listen to them, and a lack of real education on any one issue, those kind of people can really have a significant outcome… and they’ve proven it here by shutting down natural gas drilling, simply through fear and inaccuracies (Respondent 9).
The “real education” mentioned above points to a lack of understanding of rural life and how the goods that feed society are produced; an education of experience. Although it may seem unbelievable that these celebrities have had any affect on gas drilling in Wayne
County, Pennsylvania, busloads of them have visited the area on “fracking tours” which gain considerable attention from the media. A regional newspaper reported on one such event in their article, “Ono, Lennon,
Sarandon tour Susquehanna County gas drilling sites.” It points out that the celebrities boarded a Mercedes tour bus in order to tour gas drilling sites all over northeastern
Pennsylvania as part of their anti-fracking campaign. The article quotes long-term local resident Tom Shepstone, who said of the celebrity visit, “The don’t have to pay mortgages here, they don’t have to get jobs here, they don’t have to pay taxes here, they don’t have to support their families here. They just come up here to pick on this area and use it as part of their trendy cause,” (Rubinkam 2013). The article generated seven comments, six of which shared the same tone as the comment, “221” posted which read, “They need to go back to their dream land and leave us normal people alone to deal with our life and struggles on a daily basis. They have no idea” (Rubinkam 2013). This article was just one of many that reported on the events. Similar articles appeared in places including The Associated Press,
The Huffington Post and the website of Artists Against Fracking.
More recently, a group called Americans Against Fracking recently posted a series of videos asking elected officials to “Ban Fracking Now”. The most popular video is titled,
“Celebrities Ask President Obama: What the Frack?” and features household name celebrities such as Hayden Panettiere, Lance Bass, Wendie Malick and Julie Bowen. The video begins with a series of these well-known faces asking “what the frack?” followed by
“President Obama, are you fracking kidding me?” Some video comments reflected criticisms of the disparities in economic situation and lifestyle of the celebrities featured and the “average American”. One comment from “ckorenthal” read, “Dear millionaire celebs who don’t have the slightest fracking clue about how the rest of us live: SHUT THE FRACK
29 UP ALREADY!!! Maybe you can afford to continue to pay insanely high prices for energy but the rest of us are barely making ends meet!” (Americans Against Fracking).
Similarly, Artists Against Fracking released a music video for “Don’t Frack My
Mother” which the group described as “Sean Lennon’s very own anti-fracking anthem.”
This time, more than thirty artists, including Adrian Grenier, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Liv
Tyler, and Maggie Gyllenhaal joined Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and Susan Sarandon to sing a song that encourages the prevention of fracking in New York State. The video, which has been shared over 3,500 times on Facebook alone, featured un-cited facts and figures about hydraulic fracturing and has received forty comments to date on the group’s website.
Comments are generally split evenly between those who support the video, thanking the artists for their participation, and those who express their disgust with the song, mentioning the amount of carbon needed to support the lives of Hollywood elites and concerns for the cost of energy, among other topics (Artists Against Fracking). The inhabitants of Wayne County are very familiar with one of the celebrities featured in the video: documentary filmmaker Josh Fox.
Josh Fox
In September of 2010, not long after residents of Wayne County first started to sign gas leases, aspiring filmmaker Josh Fox produced an anti-fracking documentary called
Gasland. In the opening scenes of the documentary, Fox states, “One day I got a letter in the mail. It was from a natural gas company… I could lease my land to this company and I would receive a signing bonus of $4,750 an acre. Having 19.5 acres, that was nearly
$100,000 right there in my hand” (Gasland 2010). In this scene, Fox is referring to his father’s part-time home in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. Gasland became wildly popular
30 across the country, and was nominated for an Academy Award; suddenly everyone had something to say about this rural county in the corner of Pennsylvania. However, in
January of 2013, a journalist by the name of Phelim McAleer produced a counter- documentary called FrackNation in order to investigate rumors of misinformation in
Gasland.
One scene in FrackNation features Marion Schweighofer, member of the Northern
Wayne Property Owner’s Alliance, who states, “Ironically, when you look at Gasland and they have a scene where they are zooming in on the alleged original lease, it is our lease. It is an NWPOA lease draft that we had written… not one that a company offered him”
(FrackNation 2013). Because the landowner group chose to write their own lease with increased environmental protection standards instead of signing a generic gas company lease, it is easily identifiable. McAleer continues, “Marian showed me how she first noticed that. The farmer’s lease had two minor typos on the first page… and so did the lease Josh
Fox is holding up in Gasland… The documentary was misleading from the very start”
(FrackNation 2013).
On August 8th, 2013, Aspen Public Radio’s Elise Thatcher asked Josh Fox about the lease in an unedited interview. Thatcher first brings up FrackNation then asks, “they refer to the lease that’s shown in Gasland as being one that was put together by kind of a collective of your neighbors, and so I was just curious as to whether that was true or not.”
Josh’s response stated, “the leasing pool of the Northern Wayne Property Owner’s Alliance leased over 80,000 acres in the county, and we were part of that leasing pool. You know, we dropped out um, at the stage where they said ‘ok you have to sign this’.” When Thatcher expresses her surprise that Fox would have been involved in gas lease negotiations, he
31 asked, “Well listen, can we just jump off the record for a second here?” and then continues,
“I honestly have not wanted to… I mean can we or can’t we?” (Thatcher 2013). The
Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance contacted Elise Thatcher to assure her that neither Josh Fox, nor his father who owns the land, were ever a part of the Alliance. Their press release stated, “A thorough search of NWPOA records provides no evidence that either Josh Fox, or his father, Michael Fox, were ever members of NWPOA” (NWPOA Home
Page). Josh Fox has been wildly successful in frustrating Wayne County landowners and rallying an anti-fracking movement across the country, but have his antics affected policy in
Wayne County and the surrounding region? Some evidence suggests that they have.
FrackNation also features a scene in which director Phelim McAleer sits down for an interview with Carol Collier, director of the Delaware River Basin Commission, the federal commission that imposed the Marcellus shale gas-drilling moratorium in the area. McAleer started by addressing Collier, “I've spoken to some farmers in Wayne County and Sullivan
County, and they say that there is a bias against the landowners, that you agreed at one point to go to a fundraiser for Gasland and only withdrew when they pointed it out.” Collier responded, “That was quite a while ago, but actually at that point when I was asked to be on that panel, I was not told that it was a fundraiser, and when I did learn it was a fundraiser, I did back out.” McAleer then asked Collier, “Do you think it’s appropriate that your name is on the credits of Gasland?” she responds, “I am very surprised my name is on those credits. I did not know they were there. Josh never asked me.” Next the Commission’s attorney, Pamela Bush, is shown on camera attempting to confiscate the footage of the interview (FrackNation 2013). Many Wayne County leaseholders who have not been able to access their natural gas resources feel that this kind of bias lead to the Delaware River
32 Basin Commission moratorium. They point to the Delaware River Basin Commission
Executive Director’s first-name basis relationship with Josh Fox and their funding from other anti-fracking groups as evidence of this.
Urban Centers
Yet another absentee voice that has asserted itself in the local discourse is that of the interests of urban centers, particularly New York City and Philadelphia. Due to its close proximity, low property values and bucolic landscape, Wayne County has long provided a
“retreat” for those living in these nearby urban centers. One interviewee interpreted the wishes of some vacationers, “we want to keep you in poverty up here with no development so we can come up and treat it like our state park” (Respondent 17). Similar interpretations of pastoral retreaters’ wishes for the future of the landscape were often expressed by live and workers, who pointed out that, in some ways, they directly contradict the needs of the those who make a living in the area. One farmer described the disconnect, “They don’t look at this as an income or an energy potential. They look at this as taking away from their playground. This area up here has been designated as the playground for New York City for a long time and it is not. As far as I’m concerned, it is not” (Respondent 4).
All of these absentee voices seem to have dominated the local discourse surrounding natural gas development, and many believe this is to blame for the continuing moratorium in the county. One live and worker explained her frustrations,
I think it's incredibly unjust that people who do not live in this area or do not live here year-round feel that they can dictate whether or not the residents of northern Wayne County can access the natural gas beneath their lands in a responsible, regulated way.... In my opinion, they don't have standing to be in the conversation as to whether natural gas drilling should be allowed in northern Wayne County or not (Respondent 20).
33 The live and work residents of Wayne County feel as though the future of their landscape and livelihood has been hijacked by those who do not belong to their community and do not have a thorough understanding of the situation.
Users vs. Producers
When considering an energy issue such as natural gas production, notions of “users” and “producers” often begin to emerge as people attempt to situate themselves within the system. In this case, most people that I interviewed suggested a dichotomy of live and workers as producers and pastoral retreaters as users. One farmer described people like
Josh Fox and Yoko Ono; “They have no bearing in real life. They are users in life…. There are givers and takers in the world. They are takers. They are not the people who produce the food. They are not the people that really take care of this land” (Respondent 6). The rural live and workers see themselves as the people that produce the goods that ultimately benefit the urban centers that surround them, especially when it comes to energy. For example, one live and worker referred to a new high-tension power line as we looked out over his property, “What do I have here where we are sitting right now? There’s a 350-foot right of way to help the people of urban New Jersey, urban New York… None of what you see right here… gets utilized by Pennsylvania residents, yet it goes through every inch of my property” (Respondent 17). Also visible from his property were an industrial wind project and a hydroelectric dam. The fact that the area has historically provided energy to the urban centers around them, incurring all the costs and none of the benefits, further exacerbates the frustration when those urban centers are trying to prevent natural gas development in the area.
34 This user-producer scenario leads to a hypocritical situation from the perspective of the live and workers. Many pastoral retreaters seem to vehemently oppose energy production in the region, but proceed to return to their urban environment where they consume it. One farmer put it this way: “They are users of all this power. We are producing it for them. And yet, they are still complaining. They are complaining about the power line going through. They are complaining about the gas lines going through… But they want to use it” (Respondent 6). Another live and worker summed it up, “They want cheap energy, but they don’t want to know where it comes from” (Respondent 17). Some respondents noted a pattern of pastoral retreaters protesting energy sources that eventually lead to the urban centers from which they come. One said, “Their biggest thing was that they didn’t want it in their backyard… They battled the windmills that were supposed to go up there, they battled the power line, and then gas drilling came along and they battled that… It’s always been that they don’t want it in their backyard” (Respondent 8).
One sentiment of live and workers is that they are barely making ends meet in order to produce the goods that urban centers utilize, including energy sources, that are then sent back to the area’s landfills as waste. This leads them to feel under-appreciated and bullied by the urban consumers. One landowner explained how underappreciated the producers of this rural area feel,
You have all the wealth of the United States, or sort of the epicenter in New York City… they can't get away from living off the resources of the 'hinterlands' here. We are still here. We still produce coal, we produce bluestone, we produce everything else, we produce water, we take the garbage from New York City and they bring it here… You know renewable energy is coming around, windmills, they are all in Northeast Pennsylvania. The power lines go past us to New York City… You could look at it as the working poor still provide the basis, uphold the needs of all the area… And what has been just distasteful to me is they can't forego the need to utilize all of these resources (energy, electricity, natural gas) yet they move out here
35 and come in on a weekend and they can't tolerate it. And I'd compare it to steak eaters who can't stand the site of the butcher shop. Just get out of the butcher shop. There're people working hard to provide the goods and services that our society needs…. It's people that are divorced from the rural way of life. They are divorced from the systems that produce food, fuel and fiber for society and it's almost like two tribes that don't really understand each other but you need to respect one another and nobody is showing any respect for what is still going on in the rural landscape (Respondent 19).
The live and workers point out that not only do these urban centers not appreciate the goods and services that the rural landscape provides, but they have now begun to dictate in what condition those goods must come to them in, and therefore what can and can not be done in the areas that produce those resources.
The Water Issue
New York City and Philadelphia have begun to gain traction in the local natural gas discourse by claiming that their use of water that passes through the area grants them stakeholder status. Live and workers push back. First, they claim that it is not their responsibility to provide the water for urban centers. One live and worker states, “If we are responsible for giving Philadelphia their clean water, they should be paying us for it, if we’ve got to be harmed economically by providing that water to them” (Respondent 13). In the case of New York City, live and workers point out that the city gets their supply from the headwaters of the Delaware River through a reservoir system well north of Wayne
County, meaning that any effect on the water downstream could not possibly affect their water supply.
The history of New York City’s reservoir system is vital in understanding Wayne
County residents’ fear of being considered the water supply center for an urban center.
Their farming neighbors to the north, right across the border in New York State, know all
36 too well what can happen when an urban center needs water. According to the website of
New York City Environmental Protection, “In May 1931 the Supreme Court of the United
States upheld the right of the City to augment its water supply from the headwaters of the
Delaware River,” and continues, “Water for the system is impounded in three upstate reservoir systems which include 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes with a total storage capacity of approximately 580 billion gallons” (NYC Environmental Protection
2013). In order to acquire the land needed for the project, it was taken from area landowners with little compensation.
One of the reservoirs, the Cannonsville Reservoir, is located just north of Wayne
County. Osmond et al. explains,
The Cannonsville Reservoir is the third largest reservoir in NY City’s water supply system; Land for the reservoir was condemned and purchased from townspeople and farmers. According to Platt et al. (2000), approximately 1,000 residents were displaced, and were often paid only half the assessed property value. As detailed in Pfeffer and Wagenet (1999), the building of the reservoir along with other activities in the watershed by NY City caused historical tension (Armstrong et al. 2011) (2008).
In response to the reservoir system, one respondent stated, “New York City condemned and confiscated four towns to put in their reservoirs, regardless of the locals’ love of their villages, their family connections, their life… They came in and said ‘no, we’re more important.’ And they won” (Respondent 8). One respondent told me, “I think there is a lot of fear from people who think that this is going to become to Philadelphia what the reservoirs are to New York City” (Respondent 15). As urban centers started to talk about
Wayne County’s water as if they owned it, residents started to fear a similar situation.
The New York City reservoir system was not the only, nor most controversial, of cases where the land of locals was simply taken in order to benefit nearby urban centers.
37 The residents of Wayne County have not forgotten the Tocks Island Dam Project that affected their farming neighbors to the south. One woman told me, “Those who were around to see things, or heard stories from their ancestors about eminent domain issues and even the Tocks Island Project… There is a lot of fear that stays residually…is passed on from generation to generation. They don’t forget about that” (Respondent 15). Another respondent mentioned multiple suicides as a result of the seizing of land (Respondent 6).
Kathleen Duca-Sandberg explains, “The controversial damming of the Delaware River at
Tocks Island, authorized by Congress in 1962, would have created a 37 mile-long reservoir or man-made recreational lake. In preparation, fifteen thousand people were displaced”
(Duca-Sandberg 2011).
Although originally proposed to prevent flooding after two devastating hurricanes in the area, the main focus quickly turned to providing a recreation area for nearby urban centers. Though the project was never completed, the seized land was turned into the
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, successfully attracting urbanites for recreation. One respondent explained, “All this land was taken, the project never even happened… People’s livelihood was taken out from under them… You lost your great grandfather’s farm to a project that never even happened. How’d that make you feel?” She added, “It could be 100 years ago… but that story never lost its luster” (Respondent 15).
Interviews touched upon similar feelings today, as land is taken for a widening right-of-way to carry more electricity to urban areas, which perhaps help keep Tocks Island stories alive.
Out of Touch with Reality?
To the majority in the area that supports natural gas development, it seems that those against are often ill informed. One supporter explained, “Unfortunately, there are
38 many of the activists who are anti-gas who have caught on to some of the bylines and cute little sayings, who do not actually seem to have a grasp on the science or what the industry is about” (Respondent 20). This particularly bothers many live and workers who have spent considerable time attending conferences, visiting with petroleum geologists, and informing themselves as best they can. One live and worker explained, “you’ve got Josh Fox and people like that that really do not understand what they’re talking about, trying to make an issue. They’re movie producers. They’re in it to make money. And in the long run, it’s a game they play” (Respondent 6). One supporter who used his background in chemistry to inform himself about the chemicals used in the process added, “Most of these people… hadn’t a clue about the process. They couldn’t tell you a single chemical that is used in fracking, just that it’s going to kill you” (Respondent 10). This statement illustrates a difference in risk perception between the two sides of the debate.
Perceived Risk
One aspect of sensationalism that was repeatedly pointed out to me was the perception of risk. One supporter explained, “You have to keep in mind how people deal with risk. So risk has multiple dimensions. One dimension is engineering risk. You look at a process, you know what the probability is of a failure.” He continued, “It turns out that the less you know about the engineering, the higher you assume the probability will be of failure. There’s very extensive literature on this. It’s entirely emotions. And people react irrationally based on that” (Respondent 7).
These two groups of people, pastoral retreaters and live and workers, seem to perceive “risk” in fundamentally different ways. The main difference seems to be how they choose to deal with risk, be it risk avoidance or risk mitigation. Because Wayne County has
39 always been a producer of resources, live and workers are quite familiar with the risks associated with producing any resource from a landscape. “I think in general the pollution risks of natural gas drilling are there, but they are taken so out of context… If you compare them to other things we do on the landscape, it’s sort of business as usual. You need to do it right, and protect the water” (Respondent 19). Another live and worker added, “The more you get educated, I think the more you realize the specific risks that are involved versus just saying ‘it’s scary’ or ‘it’s fine’” (Respondent 15).
Once those risks had been identified through research, live and workers decided that it was possible to take steps to mitigate those risks and move forward responsibly. One landowner described how the NWPOA went about this process:
When you talk about leasing your land for gas… you have to admit that there are some risks. There are risks in everything we do… But we take measures to mitigate those risks…. That’s exactly what the farmers did and the landowners did that signed leases: they looked into it, they did some homework… and they came up with a lease that they thought protected everything and did what they could do to mitigate the risks (Respondent 9).
Another landowner discussed the fear associated with risks: “There is always this certain amount of fear in every area, whether it’s pro-gas or anti-gas, but how you deal with that fear, whether you deal with it logically and sensibly, or if you are like an ostrich and put your head in the sand…” (Respondent 2). Again, when discussing risks, it’s important to consider who is at risk and who is making the decisions about how to deal with them. One commenter on StateImpact Pennsylvania shared their opinion: “Shale development is risky and defining acceptable risk is a decision for all fifteen million of us who depend on the
Delaware River for our health and livelihoods (Colaneri 2013). This suggestion doesn’t fall on sympathetic ears, however, since it often comes from the same urban centers that didn’t
40 bother to ask rural landowners how they felt about the “risks” associated with the
Cannonsville Reservoir, the Tocks Island Project, or landfilling urban center garbage.
Privilege
I was told the story of a representative from the Audubon Society who asked of a farmer, “Why do you farmers hay in the summer when hayfields are natural nesting places for birds?” (Respondent 7). And while that may seem funny at first, when that same kind of lack of understanding about the rural poor shows its face in policy decisions, live and workers become frustrated. One live and worker told me about a conversation with the
Executive Director of the Delaware River Basin Commission,
There’s a certain kind of salamander that they’re worried about that if the water doesn’t run cold enough… it might be affected. And I said, ‘Well, what about a family that is impoverished and is fourth generation and they’re just trying to raise their children and not starve to death practically. Are they a species that count too or are you just worried about the salamanders?’ (Respondent 1).
This perception of disregard for the struggles of those who own mineral rights that are being held hostage by a moratorium leave a bitter taste in the mouth of most live and workers.
This problem is exacerbated when those who are being heard don’t seem to struggle at all and often live a life of extravagance right next door. One live and worker vocalized a common sentiment among long-time residents. “The guy’s got two hundred acres and he lives in New Jersey and he comes up on the weekends and you know, he has all the nice toys. And I live right next door on an acre or five acres and I spend most of my time cutting firewood so I can heat my house during the winter” (Respondent 12). Many live and workers who own large parcels of land, be it forestland or farmland, feel that they are being
41 exploited by pastoral retreaters. One farmer added that farmland isn’t mean for “the city people to come up and ooh and ahh over the landscape” (Respondent 13). Another farmer suggested that the live and workers are often viewed as the “chambermaids to New York and Philadelphia” (Respondent 6). Many of the live and workers already felt that they were being unjustly taken advantage of, when suddenly those people taking advantage of them began to dictate what can or can not be done on the landscape.
Tourist Economy
Wayne County’s beautiful landscape, cheap land, and close proximity to urban centers have made it a tourism destination, therefore a large part of the local economy is tourism-based. I was told,
One of the biggest tensions in the area… is selling this tourist-based industry… It’s great to have those jobs, but face it, most of those jobs are waitressing, mowing lawns, building homes… Most of them are seasonal, they are low paying and they are filler work. And if folks get so excited about them, they ought to turn around and try to raise a family on one of those jobs, because lots and lots of people have tried to do it and it’s very difficult... But a lot of the people, that’s what they want to see, they just want to see the tourism and this be a recreational area… They are just vested in us as a weekend home and tourism economy and anything that threatens that will be attacked (Respondent 19).
The prospect of natural gas leases and jobs in the area meant to some people that the area would no longer have to be dependent on its tourism economy. One woman stated, “This is not a thriving area, and to expect these people to be happy with a three month stint of recreational income at low salaries... that’s not logical, especially since they have a resource that can save the area, revitalize it, make it possible for families to stay and live”
(Respondent 8).
42 Some see the restriction of natural gas development as a tool for pastoral retreaters to keep the live and workers in poverty so that they may continue to control the landscape that they freely enjoy. One supporter referred to the region as in a state of “bucolic poverty”
(Respondent 1), and perhaps that is how pastoral retreaters wish to see it remain. Lots of blog comments and letters to the editor often echo this idea. One commenter, “env121” responded to StateImpact Pennsylvania’s article, “Politicians may not be in a hurry to break drilling deadlock in the Delaware watershed” by stating, “It never ceases to amaze me that folks that sign leases and think it’s perfectly fine to destroy the homes and peaceful enjoyment of their neighbors” (Colaneri 2013) One live and worker admitted, “I’ve talked with some of these people and I kind of got the opinion that they were afraid of us. … I felt, through some of these conversations, that they thought that if we made money from this… they couldn’t come up here and take advantage of us” (Respondent 11). There is a general feeling among live and workers that by preventing natural gas production in the area, people are “exploiting the local people and keeping them in poverty” (Respondent 2). One respondent explained,
It was explained to me…that guy with the second home comes up here and is the king of the town. He acts like he is a big shot at the restaurant throwing around his money and belittling the locals. Well he doesn’t want to see the locals get bigger than him….It really didn’t compute until I started to think about it a little bit… (Respondent 17).
But will the outcome be as they hope? Many live and workers suggest that natural gas is their best opportunity for open space preservation, their best chance to keep their land that produces the beautiful landscape that pastoral retreaters seek. As the natural gas income allows live and workers to pay their taxes, send kids to college, etcetera, they are no longer forced to sell off acres from their “land bank” (Respondent 20), which for many is
43 their only asset. In other words, natural gas income keeps the property whole as opposed to chopping it up into smaller parcels to make ends meet, which often end up being developed. “These people are trying to tell us how to live. That’s what they’re really trying to do. And what they don’t realize, they’re actually going to destroy what they’re really asking for. It’s that simple” (Respondent 6).
Work vs. Leisure
Live and workers recognize a large disparity of economic wealth between themselves and those whom they see protesting natural gas extraction. One live and worker explained it to me like this, “The entire anti-fracking movement is dominated, absolutely dominated, by the wealthiest of the wealthiest of the wealthiest… And what they are trying to do is make themselves look good and feel good by trying to impose this on poor and moderate-income people.” He continued, “My experience has been they are typically people who do not have to earn a living. They are either retired, they are second home people; perhaps they are trustfund-ers” (Respondent 18). Not only do live and workers take note of the disparity of wealth, but also the drastic differences between the lifestyle they lead and that of the average pastoral retreater.
Many respondents mentioned some sort of comparison between their life of work and the life of leisure that they see being enjoyed by pastoral retreaters. One farmer who also works as a contractor explained, “Most of the folks that are against it have their second homes here… and they kind of just see the area as their playground… And they want to come see the beautiful countryside and see the farmers playing in their fields” (Respondent
13). Not only does the image of farmers “playing” in their fields demonstrate how live and workers conceive of their exploitation, the term “playground” is also used to describe the
44 area. This term was used to describe how pastoral retreaters view Wayne County in almost all of the interviews.
The live and workers have seen their work increase and their leisure disappear as it has become harder to make a living as a farmer. One farmer admitted,
The old timers are all crippled up, bent over, can hardly walk and… should have quit working five or ten or fifteen years ago but they can’t. So basically they’ve got this choice: you either give up, start selling what you’ve got just to sustain yourself, or you keep plugging on and die working someday. And you kind of ask yourself, ‘what’s the point?’ (Respondent 13).
This struggle is hard to swallow for live and workers who have part-time neighbors living a life of leisure and dictating how the area can be used. Many saw natural gas as the opportunity that might add a third option to the choice described above. The same farmer added about gas leasing, “I kind of see it as a way of hopefully being able to keep the farm and still live a life, have family time, and actually enjoy it a little bit” (Respondent 13). The creation of the moratorium (which has not been made permanent) forced both interest groups to put time, energy and money into asserting their voices into the discourse. Again, the juxtaposition of lives of work and leisure came into play. “Those of us that own the land are working. We can’t afford to take a day off of work. If you have any vacation time, who wants to go down there and sit in a room watching these idiots chant their poetry?” asked one landowner, in reference to giving testimony at Delaware River Basin Commission public hearing (Respondent 3). Again, the mention of poetry alludes to the frivolous life of leisure that live and workers attribute to pastoral retreaters. Often the media report on events ill attended by natural gas supporters, and live and workers point to their work- driven lifestyle as the cause.
45 One respondent made sure to point out that because the two groups of people have different needs, they have different uses for the landscape, one of work and one of leisure.
He explained,
They don’t really have any desire for anybody to make a living off the land because that’s not what they’re doing. It’s not evil, it’s just the fact that they have a different look on things and their look on the situation is, ‘isn’t it beautiful? I’m so glad I was able to buy a piece of this and I don’t want anybody to ever change a bit of it.’ And of course from the perspective of the people I grew up with, it was ‘farming is going nowhere, it is going downhill fast, you can’t make a living on it, you can’t pay the taxes, you’ve got to find a way to support yourself if you want to keep the land you love and the gas was a godsend’ (Respondent 18).
The live and workers already see the landscape as one of responsible production, since they use it as their livelihood, whereas the pastoral retreaters don’t want to take anything from the landscape except for it’s beauty.
Long-time landowners seem to think that politics have forgotten about their needs on the landscape. One respondent said, “It’s just sad that this area is just looked at for its value as far as tourism and recreation. There are actually people living and working here who need to pay their bills and pay their taxes” (Respondent 2). This kind of statement,
“there are actually people living and working here”, serves as a reminder to consider the needs of everyone and found a place in most of the respondents’ stories. Many live and workers think that policy-makers have forgotten about them, and therefore their property rights have been taken away.
People that don’t have a clue have come out into this area to lecture and they are denying people their property rights, they are denying them what little way of life they still have left, and they are basically trying to set aside this landscape for their backyard playground, as a hobby area. Well there’re people that are still living here trying to make a living (Respondent 19).
46 All but a few property owners in the area own their mineral rights along with their surface rights, and therefore feel as if they should be compensated if they are going to be denied their right to access their resources. This perspective is strengthened by the fact that this region of Pennsylvania is the only area in the state where landowners have been denied access to their mineral ownership.
Property Rights
After four years of waiting for the Delaware River Basin Commission to enact regulations to allow even the exploration of gas drilling in Wayne County, the gas companies gave up and released the landowner’s leases. Immediately after most of Wayne
County residents had their leases dropped due to the ongoing moratorium, Josh Fox released a “victory speech” of sorts in the form of this statement:
If you can, please visit the Upper Delaware. Swim in the river, walk in the woods. Stand on the bridges and look for Bald Eagles. Lie out at night and take in the stars. Listen to all that water flowing… Watch as the fireflies come out in the early summer evenings. It belongs to all people, not to any landowner or gas driller. It’s yours, come visit. You won’t regret it (Sutliff, 2013).
The latter half of this statement resembles the kind of privileged pastoral retreat ideology that is distasteful to the live and workers who own the land, and is featured in the writing of revered nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In
Emerson’s Nature he states, “The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and
Manning the woodland. But none of them owns the landscape” (Emerson 1982).
The problem that local landowners have with this perspective is that they do own the landscape, and struggle every year to pay their taxes on it. One man told me, “Our
47 family pays $9,000 in real estate taxes on 140 acres… The farm cost $9,000 in 1952. And then you are telling us we can’t sell a resource we own?... It just seems way out of line. How could we be expected to pay taxes if we can’t even extract and sell our resources?”
(Respondent 1). Another respondent explained,
A lot of our landowners are generational landowners… and they have worked their entire lives to be a landowner, and then you have someone coming here who rents a hotel room for a weekend and decides that they are going to tell you what to do with your land. That’s hard on landowner rights, and I’m a big believer in landowner rights (Respondent 15).
Live and workers believe that they have a right to make this decision, and believe that an unnecessary moratorium has taken away that right. One farmer explained, “That is a direct exclusion of people’s exercise of the use of property as far as I’m concerned. If I own my property and pay taxes on it, I should be able to have a voice in that” (Respondent 4). The
Wayne County Commissioners recently wrote a letter to the Delaware River Basin
Commission in which they wrote, “This taking of basic property rights and the denial of economic liberties does not bode well for Wayne County landowners, residents, or their families” (McConnell 2013). And those that have signed leases have a lot to say about why they chose to do so.
Live and Workers
Sacred Meaning of the Land
Live and workers all emphasized their care for and deep connection to the landscape. “It’s the only place I’ve ever lived and it’s really the only place I care to live…
Every field, most everything that’s here was put here by my forefathers” one farmer explained (Respondent 13). A younger respondent with a young family explained that he
48 was excited that the natural gas industry would stimulate the local economy so that he could move back home, “because there is just no place like Wayne County to raise a family”
(Respondent 14). One farmer explained,
Anybody that’s sticking to it, the land becomes a part of them. They are working on it everyday and it is a part of their life everyday and it’s a family member. To sell it would be selling a part of you... I think it would just rip their hearts out, rip a part of their soul out. It’s just a very deep and primal feeling. It’s kind of hard to explain (Respondent 13).
Another added, “Farmers do not get out of the business, because that land, just like my land here, it’s part of our history. It’s more than land to us” (Respondent 6). Most farmers in
Wayne County can no longer support themselves with farm income alone, and have to take off-farm jobs for supplemental income. One such farmer explains that he wishes that wasn’t the case: “I’ve gone from working sixteen-hour days most of my life out in the field to working in the office now and I would give it all up any day to be back out in the field working, but I can’t make a living out there with my hands” (Respondent 11).
Live and workers are often offended that those who oppose natural gas drilling are labeled as “environmentalists”, while they are portrayed as landowners who don’t care about the environment. They often use the term “so-called environmentalists” instead. One live and worker explained, “We’ve been shunned by the so-called environmental community. I have always considered myself a conservationist, now I’m making a big distinction between extreme environmentalism and actual conservation” (Respondent 20).
Another respondent described the view of fellow live and workers: “I’m at least as much of an environmentalist as anybody else because this is my livelihood” (Respondent 7). Live and workers maintain that though they aren’t labeled as “environmentalists”, they care deeply about the environment.
49 The dominant rhetoric in the natural gas discourse often mentions that the
Delaware River Basin must be “protected”. The suggestion that people from outside the area needs to “protect” the land from the locals who have lived on it for generations strikes a nerve with live and workers. “All of a sudden people are coming from other places and claiming it as theirs and saying how it needs to be protected. Apparently somebody did a good job beforehand” (Respondent 4). A respondent with a background in watershed management added, “People in Philadelphia are very interested in our area right now…
30% of the surface water in Pennsylvania is High Quality or Exceptional Value… 97% of our county is. We are doing something right” (Respondent 15).
A farmer pointed out that landowners have put in the effort to protect the environment long before the introduction of natural gas. He stated, “They don’t understand and haven’t taken the time to come up here and check into the fact that the farmers have nutrient management plans. The farms have put thousands of dollars into best management practices to protect the water, to protect the environment” (Respondent 9).
Another farmer added, in reference to long-term residents, “These people put their heart into taking care of that soil” (Respondent 6). Live and workers believe that by signing leases, they were continuing their effort to protect the land, as they have for generations.
“Greedy Landowners”
Those who have signed leases in Wayne County have constantly been accused of being “greedy” by the natural gas opposition. StateImpact Pennsylvania recently ran a story on the struggles of Wayne County residents, and “env121” commented, “No drilling in the
Delaware River Basin. Just because some people are greedy, they don’t have to pollute those downstream!” (Colaneri 2013). One landowner responded to this kind of accusation
50 with, “Everybody yells ‘you’re in it for the money’ and all that stuff. No I’m not, because if it threatened our lake, we wouldn’t have done it. Never ever would we have gone into this if we thought that lake was gong to be threatened” (Respondent 8). Another explained, “I camp on the Delaware… My kids fish in the Delaware. My grandchildren swim in the
Delaware. I get it. I care about our water. We all do. There isn’t anybody up here just saying
‘the hell with it, let’s just make some money!’ That isn’t it” (Respondent 9).
Interviews with multi-generational landowners emphasized that passing the land on to the next generation is more important than any amount of money. One respondent explained, “It’s easy for the antis to say ‘all you want to do is rape the land and walk away’ and that’s not the case… you’ll find a lot of people who have owned the land for a lot of years and hope to pass it on to the future generations” (Respondent 12). A multi- generational landowner echoed this sentiment, “There is nothing that I would do to sacrifice my property or my community. I am not sixth generation on this farm to throw it away for the next generation” (Respondent 11).
Live and workers also emphasized that for most, the decision to lease was a thoughtful one, not a knee-jerk reaction to money. One respondent realistically admitted, “I would say probably 70% were very thoughtful about weighing the pros and the cons. I mean there is 30% that say ‘oh yeah, where do I sign? I want my money’” (Respondent 12).
None of the twenty interviews completed for this research captured the sentiments of the
“30%” described above, although a few told stories about individuals who acted in that manner. Instead, one respondent explained of her grandfather’s decision to lease, “When leasing, it was a hard decision for a lot of people I think. But I think that the ultimate was… the future of the farm, or the future of the land, or how can I set my heirs up for the future
51 of the land. And I know that’s where my grandfather came from” (Respondent 15). One respondent added,
It is often presented as economics versus environmentalism and that’s a false choice. There is no reason for those things not to go together… The NWPOA lease… They can be justifiably proud that that lease included a number of protections and demonstrated that in fact, these things can be combined (Respondent 18).
The story of the Northern Wayne Property Owner Alliance lease was often brought up as evidence that the money was not the only priority.
Instead of signing the lease that the gas company provided, the Northern Wayne
Property Owners Alliance (NWPOA) decided to hire a lawyer with an environmental background and pool the expertise of their members in order to write their own lease. One respondent not involved with the NWPOA explained, “It took [them] three years to come up with a lease that had enough protective covenants in it to make sure that they did protect the land, to make sure that they did protect the environment, to make sure that they weren’t just going about this in a haphazard way” (Respondent 9). One NWPOA member added, “The tougher you make it on the gas companies, the more it costs them to operate…
So I’m sure… we could have had more money if we had just accepted the gas company’s lease in the first place rather than our lease” (Respondent 13). Another concluded, “We took less money to be able to preserve the ecology of our area” (Respondent 11).
Taking measures like hiring a lawyer and adding environmental protections beyond those required by the state cost the Alliance both in money and time, therefore accusations that they were “greedy” often come as a shock. An NWPOA member explained,
We spent half a million dollars hiring this law firm to do everything we possibly could to protect it to the best of our ability. They made us all sound like greedy landowners that were only in it for the money. But had they been
52 through our journey, from where we started and where we ended up, I don’t think they would think of us that way (Respondent 3).
Unfortunately, members of the NWPOA expressed their frustration with their inability to make their story known in order to dispel this “greedy landowner” perception that they believe to be false.
Greed is defined as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed” (Merriam-Webster). Many respondents emphasized that it wasn’t that they
“desired” the money from a gas lease, but rather that they “needed” it. One live and worker explained what the lease money meant to many landowners: “A lot of them have a lot of debt, and they were able to at least get their head above water so that they weren’t financially struggling. They were able to pay the taxes... I don’t think anybody really got rich over it, they just got caught up a little bit” (Respondent 3). Another explained the needs of the community: “There are houses up here that don’t have bathrooms. There are houses up here that don’t have real kitchens. If you want to see something really scary, come by the community center on Thursday mornings. That’s when the food kitchen is open”
(Respondent 7).
Others pointed out that since farms and forestland are purchased as an investment, to make a livelihood from its resources, the money made from natural gas is not greed, but rather a return on an investment. One farmer explained, “We raised crops, we took the stones off the top of the ground, we took the crops off the top of the ground. And gas is another crop that comes from under the ground so we felt it was something to pursue”
(Respondent 4). Another respondent added, “That’s the premise of investment… Farms are in trouble… Natural gas would be another way for some of these large land ownerships to not only pay taxes, but basically pay the bills, make it worthwhile to own land”
53 (Respondent 19). One farmer explained of natural gas, “it’s not any different than growing corn or hay or anything else. You use the land to make money. That’s why farmers own land. They don’t own it for the city people to come up and ooh and ahh over the landscape.
They own it to make a living” (Respondent 13).
Those who signed a lease in Wayne County received at least the first installment of a signing bonus, but the moratorium has prevented them from collecting the full signing bonus, receiving royalties, and most have recently had their leases dropped. A lot of respondents talked about what they would do with royalty money if they ever received it. I was told, “I’d be out of debt. I’d get everything paid up…. Extravagance is not something we would do. I wouldn’t go out and build a fourteen-room house or something like that, no. But take care of things, get things on even keel and keep things maintained” (Respondent 4).
Other respondents also mentioned this lack of desire for a life of “extravagance”.
One farmer stated, “Where someone who is making a lot of money might buy a
Cadillac or an SUV that looks real fancy or something, a farmer takes that money and puts it back in his farm because that’s his Cadillac. They want it to be environmentally friendly”
(Respondent 6). The same farmer talked about what farmers in neighboring counties, not under the moratorium and therefore receiving royalties, are doing with their money. He said, “I drive around in Susquehanna County, or Wyoming or Lackawanna… and I’m seeing new roofs on barns. I’m seeing new fences” (Respondent 6). Another farmer added, “It’s an opportunity to afford efficiencies that you hear about in the dairy industry all the time, like tunnel ventilation, better milking systems, better milking facilities. Things that cost so much that to afford these efficiencies are impossible.” He added that farmers want to be able to “farm into the future in a sustainable way” (Respondent 9).
54 A concern for the future of the farm or forestland seemed to be at the forefront of many respondents’ planned investments. Someone told me, “I think other people don’t realize, when you’re a farmer and you’ve grown up in that heritage, you want to see that maintained. You don’t want to lose that… They want to see that land go from father to son to son for generations. That’s how they’re brought up” (Respondent 16). He then proceeded to tell a story:
I did a tour in Susquehanna County, it was early on in the development… and there was a van-full of reporters… They don’t understand farmers. They don’t understand rural people… The one farm we pulled up to, the guy was pulling a bulk tank out of the barn and it looked like he was done milking cows and the reporter asked our tour guide if the gas drilling forced him to go out of farming. And he says ‘yeah, I guess so’. So they’re writing all that down and he says, ‘Well, let me finish my answer. He’s 75 years old, never taken a day off in his life. He now finally has an opportunity to retire. And his family now wants to raise beef cattle, raise hay, change the operation a little bit… He’s not selling his farm; he’s keeping his farm. And it’s going to change over to his kids’ (Respondent 16).
This theme of reporters’ lack of understanding of farmers and rural life came up often in interviews. Farmers and landowners emphasized repeatedly that their main concern was for the future. Another farm explained, “I look at it as a way to provide for now and provide for later. It’d be an excellent opportunity” (Respondent 4).
Even though this emphasis on the future of the land exists when discussing earnings from gas leases, the assumption that farmers may up and leave once they have made some money often surfaces in the discussion. One farmer noted that at the end of the day, he sees gas drilling as “an opportunity to keep your farm” (Respondent 9). Another respondent added,
Why on earth would they take gas money and leave? They wanted to live here to be poor, why wouldn’t they live here if they were well off and had the resources? They will probably cut back on how many hours they work or maybe they will go from dairy farming to beef farming or raise llamas or
55 whatever. They’re not going to leave. They love this area. They stayed here when everybody else left (Respondent 19).
Again and again respondents echoed this idea. Many mentioned ways that farmers might alter their operation to make their lives a little easier, but all seemed to agree that they weren’t going anywhere. Furthermore, respondents told stories from neighboring counties with active gas leasing that indicated that farmers have not moved away once they had received money from their gas lease.
“Dumb Country Hicks”
There is an implication in the dominant natural gas rhetoric both nationally and locally that rural landowners have been “duped” into signing gas leases. One live and worker noted, “I’ve noticed it many times in what I do that people who come up here feel as if we are dumb country hicks” (Respondent 11). Another added, “We weren’t just a bunch of dumb farmers that they would like to make us out to be. We weren’t the Bubbas and the
Cooters, you know, that they would like to make us look like we were. I think we went about it very systematically and very intelligently” (Respondent 2). However, many out-of- area landowners not opposed to natural gas signed leases written by gas companies, which have very little environmental protection (Respondent 20).
Marcellus shale, hydraulic fracturing, and horizontal drilling were all relatively new to the landowners of Wayne County. “Initially, we didn’t know anything about it. We had never heard the word Marcellus” (Respondent 2). Every respondent explained the ways in which they chose to inform themselves on the issue. One explained, “I went to information sessions put on by the natural gas companies… by Penn State University’s geologists and the School of Agriculture… I went to several multi-day seminars put on by the land
56 conservation community in conjunction with the Department of Conservation of Natural
Resources (DCNR) and the Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania
(PADEP)” (Respondent 20). Other respondents talked to petroleum engineers, took tours of gas well sites, and read everything that they could find on the subject. They did this, many said, because they care about the environment.
“There is no respect for local people in general. They are assumed to be dumb and assumed that they don’t care at all about the environment… There isn’t a farmer in Wayne
County that doesn’t care about it” (Respondent 1). A farmer added, “You do love your farm.
You do feel responsible for taking care of the land. You feel responsible for taking care of the water. You feel responsible for that whole balanced ecosystem. And so does every other farmer” (Respondent 9). Often, when asked if they had any concerns about natural gas drilling, respondents listed a whole host of concerns, many of the same ones shared by those who protest hydraulic fracturing in the area, but went on to explain that after doing their research, only a few of those concerns remained.
As was mentioned earlier, the Northern Wayne Property Owner’s Alliance created their own lease instead of signing the one provided by a gas company so that they could assure that the lease would protect the surrounding environment. First, the Alliance showed care for the environment when selecting a gas company, they said. “We weren’t willing to take whoever came along. We basically did our own background checks and we wanted gas companies with good track records. We wanted environmentally conscious companies that were going to come in and work with care and be responsible”
(Respondent 13). After they had chosen the gas companies, they went to work designing a lease.
57 One NWPOA member told me, “We ended up… with probably the best lease around.
Indeed, it’s used as a model around the country. And it’s a lease that protects not only the landowners, but the community as a whole… because of some of the requirements and inclusions.” He added that he had been involved in selecting the lawyer that the NWPOA would hire to help draft the lease. He explained, “One of our screens was a lawyer that not only knew the industry, but that also had a very strong environmental protection background. Indeed, he was the chairman of the firm’s environmental law committee”
(Respondent 7). Members were very pleased with the lease that they came up with, and eventually ended up signing. “It’s based on what we know about providing a safe environment,” said one member (Respondent 7). Another added, “At the time we developed our lease… the state had 250-foot setbacks from any kind of waterway or your house, your well, septic, things like that. We required a 500-foot setback… Now I believe the state is the same… many of the environmental things we put in our lease are now required by the state” (Respondent 13).
Rationale for Signing Leases
Reverse NIMBY Argument
The landscape in Wayne County, Pennsylvania has a long history of providing resources for the rest of the country. “The land has, as a resource, given different things over time. From pine to hardwoods, to forage for dairy, and grains… So to us it was just more of a natural thing… It’s contributing a resource. So we kind of saw this the same”
(Respondent 1). One respondent, who has many concerns about the natural gas industry, described a “not in my backyard” view as very selfish. He added, “I didn’t decide to have gas
58 here. That’s what nature provided… You have an equal, I think, responsibility if you are going to use the fuels, you know, to pay the price. And I don’t mean the financial price, I mean all of the other things that go with it” (Respondent 10). This particular respondent was very concerned with truck traffic, and how the industry would change the look of the landscape, yet signed a gas lease because he uses products that depend on fossil fuels.
Another consideration that live and workers weigh heavily is natural gas’ contribution to American energy independence, perhaps because the region contributes so heavily to the nation’s military: yet another resource that they produce. “I’m thinking maybe we will be able to contribute an energy resource to the country and reduce Mideast dependency and things like that,” said one long-time resident (Respondent 1). Another added, “We had a war over there going on, and we all know that it had a good deal to do with fuels” (Respondent 6). Like much of rural America, a lot of young men and women from Wayne County join the military. One concerned parent explained, “I have a son-in-law over in Iraq. He’s safe, he’s home. But you pray every night that they’re over there… It’s hard to believe that people can’t put it together that we need to be energy independent”
(Respondent 9). Another parent added, “I had a son that served in the first Iraq war… and you know what it feels like to have to send somebody overseas during a war or conflict, you know you get butterflies in your stomach. So when you see all that stuff, you realize how important it is for America…” (Respondent 6).
Live and workers point out that those who protest natural gas development often aren’t from populations that supply our country its military. One respondent asked, “I wonder how they’d feel if all their kids were sent over to Iraq, or over to Afghanistan now, in that war. I bet you they’d have a different conception of it. Because every time you put a
59 well in, the way I look at it, that’s five or six kids coming back from harmful places”
(Respondent 6). According to these live and workers, the opportunity to invalidate one of what they consider to be the main reasons that this country engages in war, is an invaluable one. The concept of natural gas bringing soldiers home adds to a “reverse-
NIMBY” argument, one in which developing our natural gas is a responsibility, one that will benefit the whole country.
Benefits to the Community
Every live and worker had high hopes that the natural gas industry would bring a desperately needed economic stimulus to the whole community. “The economy sucks here even in good times” said on live and worker. He added,
You just drive around the area and you can see it. There’s a lot of houses around that porches are falling off of them and the roofs are pretty much shot and they’ve got a tarp over the roof. I don’t know what people from the city see when they drive around, if they think we are all doing great and farmers are rich and life is grand, or if they just don’t give a crap. I don’t know what it is. But there’s a lot of poverty in the area, and there’s a lot of working poverty (Respondent 13).
This statement expresses frustration with “people from the city” who are often considered the same people who refer to landowners in Wayne County as “greedy”, when often they are struggling just to survive. Someone explained the way in which Wayne County came to find themselves in such hard times: “Over the years, we’ve seen the population diminish, we’ve seen the industry leave here… we’ve seen our bridges and everything else, because the tax revenue isn’t there when you don’t have the industry, deplete” (Respondent 6). As live and workers see communities in neighboring counties thrive economically due to natural gas development, they grow frustrated. “Farmers are a dying breed around here.
60 And a lot of times the next generation has to look for work elsewhere… where the gas drilling is going forward because that’s where the jobs are” (Respondent 2).
As the moratorium continues, long-term residents can only watch neighboring counties prosper and hope that one day the same opportunities may come to Wayne
County. One explained, “All the spin-off businesses, from the contractors to the restaurants to the laundromats to the hotels… the water haulers, the tankers, the maintenance on the trucks, the maintenance on the vehicles… The spinoff is so astronomical” (Respondent 17).
Since the disappearance of industry in the area, many of the area’s jobs have been part- time or seasonal ones dependent on the tourism industry. These kinds of jobs do not meet the standards of employment necessary to ensure a way of life that will sustain a family during good times and bad (Nelson & Smith 1999:185). One farmer explained, “This is something to bring jobs to the area. It’s money to the landowner… but to many other people it’s going to be jobs” (Respondent 13). He added that the benefits to the community would not only be changes to the economy, but quality to of life as well.
One of the challenges that Wayne County faces is a lack of opportunity for the younger generation. One father said of his kids, “I’m not sure if I want them to be here because right now there is no economic opportunity for them… Maybe if the gas industry comes to town, maybe there will be. Everything could change” (Respondent 13). The gas industry in neighboring counties has created some employment opportunities for those willing to travel to other areas. A younger respondent described the kinds of opportunities made available by the presence of natural gas companies in nearby counties, including jobs with gas companies, or with companies who contract for those companies. He also added,
“One of my friends, who is thirty-eight, has decided to go back to school and get a
61 compression technology degree from college to work on a pipeline project” (Respondent
14). While live and workers are thankful for this handful of jobs, they feel as if this isn’t enough.
Now that natural gas companies have dropped their leases in the area and moved elsewhere, it’s hard for residents to maintain hope for the future of the community. “The only bright spot in the economic landscape of the Upper Delaware was the hope for drilling in that region” (Respondent 17). Live and workers who had counted on the economic stimulus from natural gas development in the county feel as if something has been taken from their community. One NWPOA member explained, “We have worked so hard to do this for the community and to make it happen the right way… so the entire community lost”
(Respondent 2).
Preserving Open Space
One live and worker spent years on the board of a local land conservancy, and said of natural gas, “I began to look at Marcellus Shale natural gas as probably the best potential land conservation tool that has been offered to rural Pennsylvania landowners in the last forty years” (Respondent 20). Another live and worker added, “That really is the end game: to have this whole area preserved, truly preserved, not picked apart” (Respondent 8). How exactly would natural gas leases work as a land preservation tool? One respondent explained it like this:
If landowners are able to benefit from royalties from natural gas leasing, we will have a small impact on our general land mass for the development of gas well pads and a bit more so for pipelines to transport that gas to market, but I firmly believe for the most part our landscape will stay intact, that the folks who own the land already love the land, do not want to be selling it, and will be able to afford to keep it. And our land will be well managed, it will be well tended and cared for, it will be productive and we’ll continue to enjoy the
62 same scenic views and high water quality and great recreation values that we have now (Respondent 20).
The original round of lease signings, when landowners received their signing bonuses, showed evidence of this process at work. One respondent noted, “There’s a property down the road, and the farmer had subdivided his land and was selling off parcels… As soon as the gas interest started, that sign just disappeared and he no longer wanted to sell his land.
That sign came down” (Respondent 10).
Because live and workers are selling the land out of necessity and not out of desire, they believe that any opportunity that would allow them to “pay the bills” so to speak, would keep large parcels from a fate of subdivision and development. One long-time resident explained, “Honestly, most of the people who still own land aren’t expecting any investment returns, they just have an emotional historical tie to the land. Either they are farmers, or they have been coming up here to hunting camps for years and decades and even generations.” He went on to explain that the gas money only needs to eliminate reasons to sell the land in order to preserve open space in the county: “Gas money would basically, I would use the word ‘endow’ these properties and allow them to continue to do what they are doing” (Respondent 19).
Unfortunately one round of lease payments five years ago has not been enough to serve as a tool for endowment. One landowner said of the DRBC moratorium, “If they keep up this nonsense for another five years, I see people starting to sell off again to investors and developers” (Respondent 8). Another added, “Every large landowner will be forced with the question of ‘how much of my life savings do I sink into holding this land?’ and one by one, people will come to the conclusion that they can’t keep it anymore… And the market in our region has mainly been to carve it up.” He added, “Gas was just an
63 opportunity to stabilize land ownership and allow people to forego the temptation to bail out” (Respondent 19). One farmer said of opposition to gas drilling in the region, “I think they have created more of an ecological disaster than they can ever imagine because they can’t see the forest because of the tree in front of them” (Respondent 11). Live and workers think that the opposition is ignoring the environmental benefits of fracking, such as its ability to preserve the open space of Wayne County, while focusing on the risks of pollution.
Land Succession
One farmer with whom I spoke, like many others, was the sixth generation on the family farm. His son had just moved back to the farm as well, making him the seventh generation. He told me a story from his childhood: “When I was in high school, I said to my dad ‘I want to be a farmer’. He looked at me and laughed. He goes ‘Do something else, because farming is dying in this area’… I just couldn’t give up farming though. I loved it”
(Respondent 11). As this generation thinks about passing the torch to their children, things aren’t looking promising. One respondent told the story of a farm down the road: “They would love to have their children back on the farm, but they don’t want them there because they don’t want to see them go through all this stuff and all of the turmoil that they’ve gone through: financial suffering, doing without. They don’t want to see that” (Respondent 16).
Generational landowners hoped that natural gas would make the family farm an opportunity, as opposed to a burden, to pass on to the next generation.
“You need to find other things, like gas, to pay for it because it’s a burden and it will be an increasing burden in future years. To maintain a couple of hundred acres of land will be an increasingly difficult burden,” explained one live and worker (Respondent 18).
64 Landowners and their families are faced with a difficult decision. They would love to pass the family land on to the next generation, as has always been done, but want to see their children prosper and don’t think that’s currently possible in Wayne County. One woman sat at her kitchen table with me and pointed out the window in the direction of a pond. She said, “The pond that’s on here I fished with my grandfather when I was little. I went fishing with him, and now I have my grandson and we go fishing in the pond… It would be my dream to have it stay the way it is, if we can keep it in the family…” (Respondent 2).
Another landowner added, “I want to give it to my kids, but… I don’t want to give them a dying dinosaur. Carrying a legacy on and giving something that’s a negative value isn’t necessarily what you want to do to your children” (Respondent 11).
Keeping Their Land
As one farmer explained about generational land, “to sell it would be selling part of you” (Respondent 13). Realizing the prospect of having to sell off the family farm or forestland is an emotional struggle in the lives of live and workers. One farmer referred to natural gas drilling, “You know, I realize nothing is perfect, but I don’t lay awake at night worrying about it. I worry a whole lot more about how I’m going to keep the land… I’m sure a lot of people are laying up at night worrying a whole lot more than I am” (Respondent
13). When landowners first signed gas leases, they believed they had found their answer.
“If you saw all the “For Sale” signs that were pulled out of the ground when this came along, where people said ‘I’m staying now. I have a chance’… They were pulled up left and right” said one live and worker (Respondent 8). Another added, “I don’t know how many people I know who were about to ready to lose their farms… the gas leases gave them an opportunity to keep those farms running” (Respondent 11).
65 After the moratorium was established, and gas companies dropped leases in the area, landowners started to struggle once again. “The gas lease gave me that extra five years to be able to pay my taxes, but now that that’s over…” explains one farmer
(Respondent 11). He proceeded to tell a story that sounded similar to ones expressed by other landowners,
My heart wants to keep the property, keep everything here. (Through tears) Financially, I’m not sure that we can do it. I’m sorry I don’t mean to break down like this… I have worked so hard to preserve this and I don’t know that I can keep it. I really thought the gas lease was our answer, and that’s been taken away from us. And every year I pay the taxes and I just don’t know where it’s coming from. I keep taking from my retirement, I keep taking money from places that I don’t have… It’s difficult (Respondent 11).
The future of the family land of many live and workers seems uncertain at the moment.
They continue to try to hang on, hoping that an opportunity will come along and prevent the return of “For Sale” signs.
Moving Forward
Policy
The hydraulic fracturing moratorium established by the Delaware River Basin
Commission has not been celebrated by either side of the “fracking” debate. While some argue that the moratorium should be made permanent, live and workers insist that the
Commission is not doing its job. It has been five years since they announced that gas companies would need to apply for a permit from the Commission as well as the
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in order to drill in the basin, and that they would not be issuing any permits until they had researched hydraulic fracturing and drafted regulations. “So we are sitting here still five years later with no regulations and
66 the gas companies have pulled out and went elsewhere because they can’t work here,” explained one live and worker (Respondent 13). Another added, “To me their actions don’t seem reasonable. I can see that they want to protect the environment, and that’s wonderful, and that’s what they’re mandated to do… But if they’re going to enact regulations, then enact the regulations…” (Respondent 12). The amount of time that has elapsed without regulations from the DRBC seems unreasonable, say residents, especially when compared to their neighbor, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.
Initially, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission similarly announced that they would write regulations and published them January 15, 2009, which allowed drilling to resume in the Basin (Susquehanna River Basin Commission 2008). A live and worker explained:
I work with clients who are landowners in both the Delaware River Basin and the Susquehanna River Basin. Both rivers are very similar. Both landmasses are very similar, with the difference being that the Delaware River Basin is located within closer commuting distance to New York City and the major metropolitan area there. The Susquehanna River Basin Commission is set up almost exactly like the Delaware River Basin Commission. There are a few differences, but their mandates are pretty much the same. When natural gas drilling appeared in the Susquehanna River Basin, within, I believe it was nine months, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission came up with a permitting process for water withdrawals for the gas companies to use in hydraulic fracturing (Respondent 20).
Unlike the DRBC, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) decided that they would monitor water withdrawals and water quantity, but not the process of hydraulic fracturing itself.
SRBC spokeswoman, Susan Obleski, explained that the agency’s compact instructs them not to take on the authority of other agencies, in this case the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, both of
67 which monitor hydraulic fracturing (Phillips 2013). A live and worker echoed these thoughts, stating,
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) very strongly regulates the natural gas industry. The Susquehanna River Basin Commission determined that it was PADEP’s responsibility and authority to regulate the gas industry and do permitting. All they were concerned with was water withdrawal and water disposal within their river basin. That is how the Delaware River Basin Commission should be looking at this also and they have not (Respondent 20).
Executive Director of the Commission, Paul Swartz, defended the agency’s position by pointing out that they lacked the expertise and jurisdiction to do what the DRBC is attempting to do. Live and workers assert that the DRBC lakes the expertise as well. One explained of the DRBC, “They have refused to acknowledge their lack of authority in this area. And they haven’t even acknowledged their lack of knowledge in this area, and it’s been pitiful” (Respondent 20). Swartz added in a press release, “When a regulatory agency chooses to stray out of its land of expertise and mission, it can have profound programmatic and legal consequences. Most important, however, I believe it does the public a disservice” (Phillips 2013).
For many of the same reasons that the SRBC stated above, Wayne County residents were shocked by the DRBC’s announcement that they planned to regulate the industry.
Some believe that after pastoral retreaters found efforts to prevent hydraulic fracturing for natural gas were unsuccessful at all other levels through voting, they turned to this federal agency for help and ultimately found an open ear. A live and worker explained it like this:
Folks lobbied the DRBC to be the last ditch effort to stop this thing. And [the DRBC] got drawn into a battle that they were ill equipped to handle and had no real interest to make happen… They had no knowledge. I sat beside a geologist in a meeting with the DRBC who had never been on a gas well site and they were embarking on writing regulations… Their intention was not
68 good policy. It was to stop natural gas from coming into the area (Respondent 19).
Not only does this opinion reiterate the lack of expertise that Paul Swartz commented on above, but it also speaks to a perception of the intention of the DRBC, something that many live and workers have strong feelings about. One stated, “They could have had these regulations finished a long time ago… stalling the moratorium is really pandering to the so- called environmentalists,” and then added, “they are protecting the playground of the wealthy” (Respondent 2). As was pointed out above, one of the differences that live and workers notice between the SRBC and the DRBC is that the latter is closer to the influences of the major metropolitan areas, possibly making it “the playground of the wealthy” whereas the SRBC is not labeled as such. “We are so close to New York [City]… I really think that that’s what hurt us in the long run,” explained one live and worker (Respondent 3).
The border between the Susquehanna River Basin and the Delaware River Basin has become increasingly significant as the moratorium continues. During one of the interviews,
I was told, “This is the line right here. We call it the economic iron curtain… Two acres of this parcel are in the Susquehanna River Basin, and 124 are in the Delaware River Basin, so that line is the economic iron curtain between pastoral poverty and prosperity. That’s the way I look at this.” Later he added that he believes that the DRBC is “directly responsible for a portion of the current poverty in the area” (Respondent 17). Another live and worker posed this question: “You live in Sturucca in the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and you can go off on your merry business and proceed with your life and I live in the Delaware
River Basin Commission three miles away and I’m in a moratorium at infinitum?”
(Respondent 12). One live and worker reiterated the importance of the border as she explained of the DRBC, “They are starving our multi-generational landowners with their
69 moratorium… I believe the landowners should be compensated for not being able to extract their natural gas the way their neighbors in Susquehanna and Bradford County can”
(Respondent 20).
So what would happen if the Delaware River Basin Commission published regulations today and lifted the moratorium? Unfortunately, Wayne County live and workers aren’t optimistic. One explained, “I think that eventually the DRBC is going to need to come up with some system for allowing natural gas extraction… But unfortunately I think it’s too late… Natural gas development is a very expensive proposition and requires a lot of infrastructure,” (Respondent 20). In other words, Wayne County has missed the window of opportunity during which gas companies were investing in and building infrastructure. Another live and worker echoed that idea:
These things go in cycles. You know, eventually there will be drilling, no question about it. But what we did is missed one of the cycles so to speak. So now you have to wait for the next cycle. Well some people can’t wait for the next cycle. People are trying to hold on to their land, people have economic burdens that they face right now, today… (Respondent 18).
This concept that Wayne County has missed a window of opportunity, and that the next cycle will be “too late” so to speak, were common sentiments shared by live and workers.
“At least for the foreseeable future, northern Wayne County has been shut out of this phase of natural gas development...” explained one respondent (Respondent 20). Another added,
“They own it. It’s their resource, and now the Delaware River Basin Commission, through sheer incompetence, combined with what I think is a deep ideological bias on the part of
Carol Collier, the executive director, has deprived them of these opportunities”
(Respondent 18).
70 Future Outlook
After years of trying to voice their perspective and seeing no results, live and workers are beginning to feel defeated, and share their worry for the future. One explained the obstruction of natural gas production in the county: “Is it going to change the history of this area? Absolutely. I truly believe that the loss of the ability to extract the gas from this area will have long-term and life-altering consequences in this area… I feel as if what we lost is irreplaceable” and added later, “Is it devastating? Sure. Are we going to survive through it? Absolutely, because we don’t have a choice” (Respondent 11).
Others seem to be holding on to what’s left of their hope for the future, searching for ways to remedy the situation. A member of the NWPOA explained,
We did everything we needed to do. We contracted with two excellent companies. We had a solid lease. We stand united as a community… We did everything you would want landowners to do. But yet, politics has prevented this from being able to move forward. So how do we overcome the politics to get our rights back? That’s the million-dollar question… (Respondent 3).
Although they have not given up hope, live and workers are aware that for the most part, the political process doesn’t care about Wayne County. One respondent referred to it as
“the orphaned county of the whole state” since it is the only county with economically viable natural gas reserves prevented from accessing it (Respondent 3). She added,
“There’s so much gas in the Marcellus. The supply is huge. Nobody needs Wayne County.
Nobody cares about Wayne County… It’s going to take years I’m afraid before anything really happens because we’re not a priority” (Respondent 3). She added, “I keep telling everybody, ‘you’ve just got to focus on your day job and make sure there’s food on the table… because this battle can go on forever.”
71 Conclusion
This research has demonstrated that the perspectives held by live and workers are informed and nuanced. Contrary to many portrayals in the media, many signed leases precisely due to their love for the land, rather than their lack of concern for it. Wayne
County residents have historically produced many of the resources (including energy) that
Americans depend on, while receiving very little in return and have finally been given an opportunity to benefit financially from the development of their resource. Although some live and workers tend to frame their considerations of natural gas development in a primarily local capacity, considering the local landscape, economy, and paying their bills, others described thinking more broadly about the resource, mentioning the importance of providing an energy source that will help to meet the country’s energy demands. Although these perspectives are informed and nuanced, live and workers have been denied the tools to represent themselves in the local and national discourse.
In his book, “Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian
Valley” John Gaventa states, “Together, patterns of power and powerlessness can keep issues from arising, grievances from being voiced, and interests from being recognized,”
(1982:viii). Gaventa examines a coal-mining valley, and wonders why amidst extreme oppression, there seems to be no attempt to rebel. He posits, “I began to wonder if I would not do better to turn my traditional political science around: to ask not why rebellion occurs in a ‘democracy’ but why, in the face of massive inequalities, it does not.” (1982:vi).
Gaventa proceeds to explore Steven Lukes’ “three-dimensional” approach to power, which Luke’s asserts, “offers the prospect of a serious sociological and not merely personalized explanation of how political systems prevent demands from becoming
72 political issues or even from being made” (1974:38). After applying Lukes’ approach to his case study, Gaventa concludes,
The institutions which affect the Valley—corporate, governmental, communications, labour—may appear ‘at the top’ diverse, relatively unconnected, even competing. But when the same institutions are viewed ‘from the bottom’, i.e. from the perspective of the non-elite of the community, they appear unitary in nature (1982:260).
He posits that although this system may appear democratic “at the top”, “it is ‘at the bottom’ in a participatory, federalist system where democracy should be working if it is working at all. When it is not, then the pluralism ‘at the top’ only gives a false appearance to what occurs locally,” (1982:260).
This research presents many consistencies with Gaventa’s case study, including his conclusions about power that appears diverse ‘at the top’ but seems rather connected ‘at the bottom’. In the case of the natural gas discourse in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, respondents noted threads between seemingly unrelated sources of opposition. They were troubled by the fact that the name of the executive director of the Delaware River Basin
Commission, a federal regulatory agency, appeared in the credits of Hollywood A-lister Josh
Fox’s anti-fracking documentary. From the perspective of many live and workers, urban interests, celebrities, and regulatory agencies have joined together to represent one opposition, quite “unitary in nature”, as Gaventa states above.
Furthermore, Gaventa compares Central Appalachia to a colony, “affected by the process of colonization similar to the process through which a metropolis develops and maintains dominance over hinterlands in other parts of the world” (1982:43). He describes the “absentee-dominated social and political order which was established in the
‘colonization’ of the region” (1982:252). It may be useful to apply this theory of
73 ‘colonization’ to Wayne County, Pennsylvania, where much of the social and political order is now largely controlled by those who have moved to the area from urban centers and have dramatically different goals and conceptions of the area than longtime residents. In fact, Gaventa even uses much of the same language to differentiate between the two groups as the respondents in this research. He references, “control of the land by others who neither live, work, nor depend upon it,” (1982:205) which perfectly describes the situation in Wayne County, Pennsylvania as well.
Although the two cases share many similarities, two significant differences exist which allow this research to contribute to the field or rural sociology and furthermore, the study of power and powerlessness within it. Whereas Gaventa has been drawn to this region due to his interest in the lack of rebellion in the face of inequality, live and workers in Wayne County have allotted a considerable amount of time, effort, and resources in order to have their voice heard, yet have not been successful. The power at work upon them has not prevented the vocalization of their grievances, but rather its opportunity for effectiveness.
In the case of the Central Appalachian Valley, Gaventa describes an exploited population left powerless by a corporation (the coal company). In the case of Wayne
County, the natural gas companies have remained more or less absent from the conflict at hand. In fact, the live and workers felt as though they had effectively “won” in their negotiations with the companies by working together and staying informed. In this case, a third party, represented by pastoral retreaters and celebrities, emerged and complicated the situation that Gaventa describes. This research presents a situation in which the power of the gas companies over the study population is secondary to the power of a group of
74 people uninvolved in negotiations. Using Gaventa’s case, one would assume that this research would tell the story of a group of people exploited by the energy industry, whereas the live and workers actually feel as if they are being exploited by an essentially absentee third party. Therefore, this research has complicated Gaventa’s theories of power and powerlessness, leading to the need for further research in the area that examines the application of new forms of energy production in rural communities.
I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment.
Grace Wildermuth
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Respondent 1. Personal interview. 22 Aug. 2013.
Respondent 2. Personal interview. 26 Aug. 2013.
Respondent 3. Personal interview. 27 Aug. 2013.
Respondent 4. Personal interview. 27 Aug. 2013.
Respondent 6. Personal interview. 30 Aug. 2013.
Respondent 7. Personal interview. 30 Aug. 2013.
Respondent 8. Personal interview. 2 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 9. Personal interview. 3 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 10. Personal interview. 3 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 11. Personal interview. 4 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 12. Personal interview. 4 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 13. Personal interview. 4 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 14. Personal interview. 5 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 15. Personal interview. 5 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 16. Personal interview. 5 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 17. Personal interview. 5 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 18. Personal interview. 6 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 19. Personal interview. 7 Sept. 2013.
Respondent 20. Personal interview. 7 Sept. 2013.
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