Sudden Wealth from Gas Rush Fractures Pennsylvania Communities

Editor's Note: SolveClimate News reporter Elizabeth McGowan traveled to Northeastern Pennsylvania in late March to find out how the gas drilling boom is affecting the landscape and the people who call it home. This is the fifth in a multi-part series. (Read parts one , two, three and four)

MONTROSE, Pa.—If a cash register freshly laden with greenbacks is any measure of happiness, then Susan Griffis McNamara should be one of the most content residents of this tiny borough in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Instead, her stomach is in knots.

The 45-year-old is aware she owes part of the bump in business at her lumberyard and hardware store to an energy boom she's witnessing in her native Susquehanna County. Exploration and drilling companies have swooped into this somewhat hardscrabble locale to capitalize on what geologists have christened the "sweet spot" of natural gas entombed thousands of feet below this mountainous terrain.

McNamara fears the invasive underground extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing — fracking, for short — is causing irreparable fissures among friends, relatives and neighbors living atop the prized black band of Marcellus Shale.

"It's terribly painful," the fourth-generation entrepreneur says from her desk behind the counter of the company her great grandfather started from scratch in 1943. "This topic of gas drilling comes up at every event and every conversation, and everybody has an opinion. It's really dividing our community."

Hints of discord have even penetrated very close to home. At family dinners, she now avoids any talk about drilling with her father and mother-in-law — both of whom have signed leases with gas companies.

Sara Griffis McNamaraMcNamara knows her observations aren't unique. Plenty of newcomers and longtime residents are equally aggrieved by the "us versus them" attitude that has pierced this settlement of barely 1,600 souls.

They wince at the tight-lipped smiles, hear every awkward silence. The tension is fierce and palpable enough that handfuls whisper about leaving. Several have already packed their bags.

Those staying put are voting with their feet. They refuse to spend dollars at restaurants and other businesses they see catering to drilling proponents.

No doubt, the lure of steady lease and royalty payments from gas companies is appealing in an economically starved section of the Appalachian Mountains that counts mainly on agriculture and tourism to pay the bills.

What some see as an opportunity for a financial bonanza, however, scares others who think this hunt for America's energy future is jeopardizing the air they breathe, the water they drink and a rural landscape that has long been a draw for those seeking an escape from urban chaos, and is on the verge of transforming into a haven for small-scale organic farmers.

"A lot of people say, 'Where would we be without the gas companies to carry us through this last recession?'" McNamara says. "Well I think we would have been fine. We're not so poorly off that we have to turn over all of our resources to drillers."

Make It Stop

McNamara speaks longingly about how she wishes she had been more outspoken with her anti-drilling message several years ago when companies such as Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., which also has an office in Pittsburgh, began courting Susquehanna County.