They reached the front door, and Chris followed the Rabbi into the crumbling farmhouse, which had thick stone walls, low ceilings, and small rooms that were typical of homes built during the colonial era, but the décor was hardly historic. The walls had been paneled and decorated with deer heads in baseball caps, and worn mismatched furniture and a fake leather recliner sat around an old television on a metal cart. Beanbag ashtrays overflowed with cigarettes, and the air smelled like stale smoke.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Chris said, then his gaze fell on a grouping of family photos that hung at crooked angles. He spotted Courtney’s pretty face, a bright-eyed young girl with missing teeth in her school picture, then a First Communion picture, and group pictures with her two older brothers, who had none of her good looks, though they shared her dark hair and dark brown eyes. Both brothers had broad smiles, which became flatter over the years.
The Rabbi pointed. “That’s David, age thirty-eight, on the left and Jimmy, forty-five, on the right. We circulated a better one, but that gives you an idea.”
“Got it.” Chris took out his phone and snapped a photo, just in case.
“Come this way.” The Rabbi led him from the living room and down the hall, past two crummy bedrooms to a back room, which appeared to be a spare bedroom. On the bed were piles of paper, correspondence in accordion files, and scattered court pleadings with blue backers.
“What’s this?”
“More bad news.” The Rabbi gestured to the papers. “The Shank family has had a dispute for the past five years with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the EPA, and Frazer Gas, which has leases to frack the neighboring farms. The problem is that three of the neighboring farms leased their land to Frazer Gas for fracking. Under Pennsylvania law, if three contiguous farms lease to frackers, the gas company can drill underneath your parcel, whether you leased or not. They drill horizontally.”
“Really.” Chris walked over to the papers, picked up the first packet, and started thumbing through the letter on top, to Frazer Gas, which read:
… You have ruined our home and our business. We used to sell top-quality horse and alfalfa hay, but then it was only good for mushroom hay and now even the mushroom farmers won’t buy it. We can’t sell it to anyone. You ruined our family business. We built a reputation as the best hay dealer on the quality of our hay and now that has gone down the tubes. We could not even give it away, not once they found out where it came from and we are not willing to lie to people to take their money like you will …
“Pennsylvania’s law allows it, and the fact is, you can own the surface rights of your property, but not the mineral rights. Lobbyists and politicians strike again.”
Chris picked up the second packet, looking at the date, 2010. It was scientific testing of some type, attached to a letter.
Dear Sir,
We demand that Frazer Gas, the PADEP, and the EPA cease and desist their drilling! They have destroyed our property and made us sick, especially my elderly father! We demand justice and we have proof! You can see by this report that the air is contaminated and killing us and our horses and dogs!!!!
Chris flipped to the report, skimming down the list of chemicals:
BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene’, m-xylene, p-xylene, o-xylene); carbon tetrachloride, chloromethane, methylene chloride, tetrachloroethylene; trichlorofluoromethane …
The Rabbi continued, “The Shanks claim that as soon as the fracking started, their farm went to hell. The air turned bad, the water turned bad, and Frazer Gas and the state government ignored them. The state eventually conceded on the water quality when it caught fire.”
“The water burns? Is it methane?” Chris turned to the next letter, also to Frazer Gas:
… You give us water buffaloes but that’s barely enough for us to drink but we don’t have drinkable water for the horses and they all got so sick after you started drilling they were bleeding out their noses, losing weight, and refusing their grain until they died of starvation!!! My hunting dog died the same way …
“Evidently. The same thing happened in Dimock, if you heard about that. So the Shanks and their neighbors complained and complained, and the state finally sent in some water buffaloes.”
“Water buffaloes?”
“It’s not an animal, it’s a big tank of potable water. The water buffalo was for the family, not for the animals, and the Shanks had horses. They had no choice but to give the horses the water from the well, and over time, the horses got sick and died, except for one.”
Chris felt for the Shank family and understood their grievance. Whatever the cause, it would’ve been disastrous to lose their farm and animals. He kept reading the letter.
… You sold my neighbors a bill of goods. You made our lives a living hell and now our houses are worth nothing. Nobody will buy them and we can’t even move away. Your landsmen told them they would be getting royalties from the drill leases and that was a TOTAL LIE. They have yet to see a dime. You would say anything to get what you want, and that is a TOTAL CRIMINAL FRAUD that you perpetrated on …
“They have forty-five acres, you’ll see it out back. It’s all open until you get to the well pads drilling the neighboring farms. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Chris looked out the window of the bedroom, but all he could see was darkness, and above it, the moon beginning to thin to transparency. Monday morning was on its way. He returned his attention to the letter:
… You were aided and abetted by the government! You know who to pay off and you have your lobbyists lining the pockets and kissing the asses of the politicians in Harrisburg and Washington. That is not LEGAL AND IT IS NOT JUSTICE. You don’t care if you ruin family farms like ours. The Shanks have been in Pennsylvania since day one! Do you even know that William Penn named our beautiful Commonwealth Pennsylvania because that means Penn’s Wood? He wanted it to be full of trees, not drilling pads …
“Then about two years ago, the father, Morris Shank, develops nosebleeds, nausea, headaches, heart trouble. The Shanks start a letter-writing campaign, file suits, make all the noise they can. They get stonewalled by the state and federal government, Frazer Gas countersues them, and six months ago, Morris Shank dies of a heart attack.”
“Oh boy.” Chris eyed the papers, dismayed. “And they blame the gas company, the state, and the feds.”
“Exactly.” The Rabbi gestured at the papers again. “So what you’re looking at is antigovernment animus. Motivation. The Shank boys get angry. David starts drinking too much, and believe it or not, they blame that on fracking too. And they don’t have a bad argument. The locals tell me that alcoholism and crime increases in fracking areas. Also traffic accidents, because of the heavy machinery using roads not meant to carry the loads and noise.”
“Really.”
“I’m not making a judgment, I’m telling you what they’re telling me. The locals say people who leased their land aren’t happy and haven’t seen a dime in royalties, but it’s too late. And it’s not our focus. The target is.”