American common law posits that "Whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to heaven and down to hell." The so-called Ad Coelum Doctrine is the foundation for private property rights in the United States. It also creates a responsibility unique to American landowners: they — not the government — control the mineral rights buried deep below the surface. In the mountains of Pennsylvania, where land is kindred and personal freedoms are hallowed, leasing property for gas drilling, also known as “fracking”, is a personal choice with profound collective consequences.
Over a century ago, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania was the epicenter of the American timber industry. Lumber barons clear cut mountainsides with rapacious efficiency and yielded enough wealth to merit a street in Williamsport called “Millionaire’s Row.” The town is now a blue-collar community of 29,000, surrounded by fertile farmland and home to the Little League World Series and small manufacturing outfits and a rural economy tethered to natural gas.
Doctrine examines how America’s distinctive form of private mineral ownership, cultural myths surrounding freedom and self-reliance, the rural-urban divide, and economic necessity conspire to shape land uses like mineral extraction. Lycoming County, which sits atop the Marcellus Shale Formation, serves as the geographic parameter for this study.
This project was part of “Up To Heaven, Down To Hell: Fracking, Freedom and Community in An American Town”, written by Colin Jerolmack and published by Princeton University Press.