From a rural idyll to an industrial site: an analysis of hydraulic fracturing energy sprawl in Central Appalachia

Abstract

This paper analyzes land-system dynamics changes due to energy infrastructure development and explores the environmental and social ramifications of hydraulic fracturing, through a case study in Central Appalachia. Grounded in photographic data, satellite images, and ethnographic material, this study demonstrates landscape and embodied experiences of change over time. Data show major shifts in terms of wildlife behavior, possibilities for farming and gardening, and byproducts of construction like noise, pollution, and excavation. However, what we argue is crucial to examine is the emotional toll that these changes have taken on rural residents. Interviewees chose to live in West Virginia because of deep enchantment with the surrounding natural beauty, which they feel they have lost due to energy development. While energy research has been dominated by technical disciplines and explanations, we advocate for an emotional-oriented analysis that accounts for individually lived experiences in the context of these landscape-level changes.

Exploring Climate Change Perspectives. An Analysis of Undergraduate Students' Place‐Based Attachment in Appalachia, USA

“…Mountains have been flattened and new valleys have been created through mountain top removal mining (Lewin 2019). The latest unconventional oil and gas extraction developments have effectively turned pockets of the region into industrial sites (Caretta et al 2021), as heavy machinery, roads, pipelines, and processing facilities required for hydraulic fracturing directly contribute to widespread land‐use and landscape change. Decades of socio‐economic deterioration and the further collapse of the US coal industry has led to high unemployment and widespread poverty, which continues to depopulate the region and exacerbates the already prevalent brain drain of the region's youth (Fabricant 2015; Vazzana and Rudi‐Polloshka 2019).…”

Collaborative sensemaking through photos: Using photovoice to study gas pipeline development in Appalachia

“…Our work (Caretta et al, 2019;Caretta and Carlson, 2022;Carlson and Caretta, 2021;Turley and Caretta, 2019) has contributed to the mounting evidence showing that Appalachians have experienced increased socioeconomic inequality at the hands of large natural extraction corporations who have seen their returns grow while failing to invest in local communities at the forefront of extraction. Residents have had to manage deteriorating health and environmental conditions, making little to no profit from the resources extracted from under their feet in the name of national energy independence (Emmanuel et al, 2021;Jacquet et al, 2018;Malin and DeMaster, 2016).…”

“…This freedom can yield important insights in fraught settings where institutional and community stakeholders find themselves in tension with one another—settings like rural communities experiencing gas pipeline development, where lived experiences are rarely documented and where numerical positivistic knowledge prevails, particularly as any effects must be quantified for industries to compensate landowners for damage from pipeline installation (Caretta et al, 2019). The development of energy infrastructure is a complex process in which corporations and communities often report strikingly different experiences related to such development: while corporations discuss development in terms of economic gains, community members often express fears of environmental degradation and threats to public health (Malin and DeMaster, 2016).…”