For 85-year-old Pennsylvania farmer George Wherry, extracting natural gas using the controversial technique of “fracking” is a way to achieve economic “freedom” – one of the many reasons to vote for Donald Trump in November in this key election state.
Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is a technique that extracts hydrocarbons from rock at great depth.
In the natural gas-rich state of Pennsylvania, vital to the November presidential election, Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, are vying for voter support against the backdrop of their stance on the mechanism, which is being questioned by environmentalists.
Unfortunately for Harris, who backed a ban on fracking in the past when she ran for president in 2019, many voters in a crucial fracking zone say Trump would be a better president for backing the industry.
Harris says he has changed his mind. But for farmers, that doesn’t mean much.
Wherry and her 56-year-old daughter, Diana Petrie, who recently returned to the family land after 30 years in Colorado, will support Republican candidate and former President Trump.
“I definitely hope it’s Trump,” said Petrie, standing next to his father. With Trump, “you know what you’re going to get,” he added.
George Wherry’s sheep and a few cows graze around three deep gas wells.
His ranch is in Washington County in southwestern Pennsylvania, a rural corner where Trump won more than 60% of the vote in 2016 and when he sought reelection in 2020.
They have a flock of 500 sheep and some cattle for their own consumption. And of course, “fracking” is a source of income.
The money he receives from gas allows Wherry to invest in new technology that makes livestock production “easier” and helps with his costs. “It gave me a little bit more freedom,” he says.
Growing support in Pennsylvania
A former Democratic stronghold with strong unions, Washington County has voted Republican in every election since 2008.
Trump’s strong support for fracking helps him in this area and throughout the Appalachian region, where the shale gas boom, as it is known, has created millionaires and well-paying jobs over the past 15 years in an area of strong deindustrialization.
Harris’s change of position sowed skepticism in this agricultural county.
“I think your word is your guarantee,” said former coal mine manager Jason White, adding that he was not entirely convinced by Harris’s U-turn.
A registered Republican voter, the 37-year-old runs Wild Acres Farms, a small fracking site that also hosts hunting and fishing tours. He plans to vote for Donald Trump on November 5.
Environmentalists, scientists and health experts have repeatedly warned about the consequences of this hydrocarbon extraction technique on health and the climate, as it involves using huge quantities of water, sand and a mixture of chemicals to break up the rock matrix and release the trapped gas.
In some European countries, such as France and Germany, fracking is banned.
According to a 2022 poll by the Muhlenberg College Public Opinion Institute, 48% of Pennsylvanians are in favor of the technique – 9 percentage points more than a decade ago – and 44% are against it.
When asked if residents think natural gas is important to the state’s economy, they have no doubts: 85% say yes.
“All said”
“Fracking has been positive overall,” said August Michel, a Republican voter who runs a lemonade business at farmers markets in the area.
“Being anti-fracking is like being anti-farmer, right?” the 53-year-old wondered at his stall at the Monongahela Farmers Market.
Michel voted for Trump in 2016, in 2020, and will do so again in November.
At another booth not far away, Laura Jean Kahl, 40, who sells fresh fruits and vegetables grown on her family farm, is voting for Kamala Harris for one simple reason: “She’s not Donald Trump.”
Kahl believes the economic benefit of fracking does not outweigh the long-term environmental impact. But he does not hold much hope that Harris, if elected, will curb the advance of the method.
“There is too much money and enthusiasm behind the fracking industry. That’s all there is to it,” he concluded.
