For decades, coal from West Virginia helped power the nation. Now, natural gas has overtaken coal as an electricity source. Gas from West Virginia heats homes and fuels kitchen stoves in faraway cities. The industry’s growth has brought much-needed jobs and tax revenue to West Virginia, an economic bright spot for a state where many communities are still reeling from the downturn of coal, long the state’s most powerful and profitable industry.
Along the way, however, the gas rush has changed the look and feel of communities across West Virginia. It has shattered the quiet of rural life for people like Martin. Modern drilling and gas production bring traffic, noise and dust to communities that haven’t had to wrestle with large-scale industrialization. For some residents, gas operations aren’t down the road or up the hollow, but right on their farm, forest or driveway. And today, the gas industry is far different in scale, scope and impact than could have been imagined possible when West Virginians signed over natural gas rights decades, or more than a century, ago.
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