When I told my mother I was going to Pennsylvania to meet with Robert Wagner and James Garner, the look on her face was priceless. I knew there were visions of two handsome movie stars dancing in her head, and I hated to burst her bubble. But eventually I had to break into her reverie and explain that the gentlemen in questions were not in fact the matinee idols we all swoon over when we watch them in old movies. No, Bob and Jim (as they prefer to be called, probably so there is no confusion) were two of the individuals I was scheduled to sit down with on our little Evening Sun field trip to Susquehanna County, Pa.
Each of us had a focus during the excursion, and mine were business and agriculture. Which makes perfect sense, of course, since those are two of my primary coverage areas here at Chenango’s hometown daily. Bob works for the USDA National Resource Conservation Service out of the federal agency’s Montrose field office. Jim heads the Susquehanna County Conservation District. I’d arranged to meet with both of them during our fact finding mission.
I’m not going to lie. Initially, I had some reservations about the trip. Not because of any reluctance to see firsthand the impact the natural gas industry has had on Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier. It had more to do with Brian’s decision to choose that particular day to stop smoking.
Let’s just say the car ride was, at times, entertaining. It’s amazing how little humor someone has when they are trying to wean themselves off nicotine!
Before I moved back to New York three years ago, I spent the preceding five living in Western Colorado. So, unlike my colleagues, I’ve witnessed a gas boom before. But I was unsure how what I remember seeing there – in Mesa and Garfield counties – would translate to the rolling hills of our region. In Susquehanna County, where the landscape is similar to ours, I caught my first real glimpse.
We’ve all heard the horror stories coming out of Dimock, and my fellow reporters and I were anxious to see how accurate the situation had been portrayed. I’m sure we had some preconceived notions of what we’d see, but I think the reality was much different than we expected.
Both Tyler and Melissa have covered much of this ground before, so I’ll try not to rehash it too much.
Chenango County is by no means a wealthy county, but my first impression of Susquehanna County was that it was even poorer. The homes and trailers we passed, while well maintained, were smaller. There were few outward signs of the area’s new found natural gas-driven prosperity.
The truck traffic was unbelievable, particularly on the rural roads crisscrossing Dimock township. The wear and tear caused by all those heavily-laden trucks was evident in the patchwork appearance of many of the paved roads.
The back roads, however, were impressive. But that’s because the gas companies repaired them to better-than-new after their heavy trucks basically destroyed them last spring. According to John Benscoter (whom you’ll meet in my “Boon or Bust” story today), PDOT could learn a thing or two from the way these companies did the required road work. As I said, they’re impressive, if a bit narrow.
