The owner of Dennis Farm, a historic farm in Susquehanna County, has signed a lease to allow fracking (a method of natural gas extraction) on the property. She hopes the funds will help her rehab the historic farmhouse, but critics have remained skeptical. Philadelphia’s City Council has held hearings on whether public water supplies could be contaminated by gas drilling in other parts of the state.
The owner, Denise Dennis, initially rejected an approach from Cabot Oil and Gas to lease part of her 153-acre farm in gas-rich Susquehanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania. But late last year she changed her mind and signed a lease that allows the company to drill horizontally below her land without sinking any wells within its boundaries.
Ms. Dennis is a direct descendant of Prince Perkins, a free black veteran of the Revolutionary War who came to Pennsylvania from Connecticut and bought the farm in 1793, beginning a continuous record of family ownership that is now in its eighth generation. Part of that legacy is a trove of historic and archaeological materials, including rare records from the Revolutionary and Civil wars as well as evidence that the farm was a stop on the Underground Railroad for slaves fleeing Southern states.
Original source: The New York Times' Green blog
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