Business Week -by Matthew Philips
Back in 2000, men from Chesapeake Energy (CHK) started showing up on people’s doorsteps around Broome County, New York, a few miles north of the Pennsylvania border. Once a hub of manufacturing and technology jobs (IBM (IBM) was founded there), Broome had long since peaked by the year 2000 and was now on the same downward trajectory as other Rust Belt towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Strangers didn’t typically show up offering cash to lease the drilling rights for people’s land. Sure, Broome was right on top of the natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale, but only geologists really knew what that meant, and back then, no one had ever heard of fracking. Continue reading “A Fracking Pioneer Abandons One of Its Earliest Land Grabs”