Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America

The greatest good for the greatest number of people made Harley a justifiable casualty in the struggle against melting ice caps and rising sea levels wrought by climate change; against faraway despots bolstered by energy supplies; against a slump in American industry that left millions out of work, including her father.

These new leases sprang from the ground—a rare win in a place that had been losing

Did Stacey and her children have to adapt to technology by leaving their farm, or did fracking have to adapt to the communities that preceded it? The Pennsylvania Supreme Court came down firmly in favor of individual rights and community, over the rights of the extractive industry.

Stacey attributed all of these financial setbacks to the gas wells. Every day brought a fresh outrage that seemed to lead her further from the life she’d envisioned. She’d been so sure that her goodness, paired with relentless work, would yield success. In her mind, she’d set herself apart from her parents, who worked impossibly hard but still foug

Stacey explained the virtues of signing a lease together: more money and greater influence than going it alone with a corporation.

Her neighbors’ opinions about Harley’s health often had less to do with the boy’s welfare and more to do with their positions on fracking. Few wanted to challenge the benefits. For the first time, the people of Amity stood to make money from the mineral wealth beneath their corn and wheat fields.

Since Pennsylvania doesn’t require monitoring private wells, there was no record of what was in Buzz’s well—though it sat on a floodplain next

Through Baker and others, Stacey learned that the companies were looking for larger lots to make it easier for them to consolidate leases and infrastructure.

To lay these pipelines that would transport the primordial gas to urban markets, companies needed to dig trenches across farmers’ land.