Environmental Disputes and Opportunity-Threat Impacts Surrounding Natural Gas Fracking in Louisiana

Abstract

Despite the increasing socioenvironmental controversy over the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology in unconventional natural gas development (i.e., fracking), few sociological studies have used citizen interview narratives to examine attitudes toward shale fracking at the local level. Drawing on sociological research, discursive documents, and in-depth interview data collected from regional stakeholder groups/citizens, this article offers a qualitative analysis of the environmental disputes and opportunity-threat impacts perceived to surround natural gas exploration and hydraulic fracking in the Haynesville Shale region of Louisiana. The narratives reveal that the fracking dispute largely revolves around divergent diagnostic and prognostic beliefs about shale gas development, as well as whether the perceived economic opportunities of development outweigh the alleged socioenvironmental risks to the Haynesville community. Some conclusions about the utility of qualitative research for the study of environmental controversies like fracking, as well as the potential future direction of the growing national debate over shale gas and oil extraction, are discussed.

Keywords

environmental disputes hydraulic fracking natural shale gas development opportunity-threat impacts environment and technology

Introduction

Although environmental disputes over the impacts of fossil fuel extraction and the hydrocarbon treadmill have grown in recent years (Cable 2012; Freudenburg and Gramling 1992, 2011; Gill, Picou, and Ritchie 2012; Gunter and Kroll-Smith 2007; McAdam and Boudet 2012), few issues have been as contentious as those surrounding unconventional natural gas development and hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as “fracking” (Doe 2013; Willow et al. 2014). First patented in the late 1940s, fracking represents a controversial well stimulation and completion technique whereby millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals (many of them considered hazardous or toxic) are injected under extreme pressure into deep underground shale deposits to fracture the rock and release the natural gas trapped in the seams (Katusa 2011; Theodori 2013). Made profitable only in the last decade by the confluence of multidirectional drilling techniques, increased pipelines, favorable energy legislation, tax subsidies, and rising energy prices, unconventional natural gas production (as opposed to older, conventional development methods involving single-directional, vertical drilling into shallower gas deposits) has risen 10-fold since 2005. Nearly a half-million shale gas wells have been drilled in over 30 states and some 25,000 are hydraulically fractured each year. Today, over 90 percent of shale gas (and oil) production depends on unconventional drilling and fracking techniques (Gold 2014; Lavelle 2012; Theodori 2013).

Heavily promoted by the oil and gas industry, many politicians, and some environmentalists as a “game changer” and “bridge fuel” to the future, natural gas is touted as a safe, abundant, domestic energy source that will slow climate change, revitalize rural communities, produce hundreds of thousands of new jobs, reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil, and provide a century’s worth of energy to American households (Sayre 2011; Wright 2012; Yergin 2011). At the same time, its rapid development has also ignited a growing antifracking movement that has been gaining political and cultural traction nationwide since 2008. Early opposition, for example, ranged from concerns over surface disruptions posed by the construction of drilling rigs on rural and metropolitan landscapes, to the differential signing bonuses and royalties paid by gas companies to landowners for their mineral rights (Eisenberg 2010). Following the national attention generated by the 2010 academy award-nominated documentary Gasland (Fox 2010), fracking increasingly came under fire for its potential to contaminate local groundwater supplies and deplete aquifers, as well as create hazardous wastewaters, methane emissions, well blowouts, and earthquakes. Moreover, fracking has been opposed due to its industrialization impacts on rural communities that increase truck traffic, noise, stress, and crime to the detriment of farming, tourism, animals, and human health (Chapman 2010; Clark 2012; Finkel and Law 2011; Food & Water Watch 2011, 2012, 2013; Goodman 2012; Hightower 2012; Lohan 2013; Urbina 2011). Finally, high-volume hydraulic fracking has also been attacked for its hidden carbon footprint, limited job creation, and unsustainable boomtown impacts on local economies (Brune 2013; Upton 2013a).

Due to the myriad opportunities and threats perceived by citizens and policymakers to accompany unconventional natural gas development, increasing numbers of shale communities across the United States are deeply divided over the impacts of energy development and whether the purported benefits of industrial fracking outweigh the risks (Kriesky et al. 2013). As skepticism has mounted, citizens have enacted drilling bans and moratoriums in towns across New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Colorado, and Vermont, states have adopted new fracking regulations, protestors have been jailed for acts of civil disobedience against energy companies, and federal courts have blocked exploratory drilling on public lands (McKibben 2013; Onishi 2013; Surgey 2013; Upton 2013b).

Despite the growing socioenvironmental controversy over the issue, few sociologists have analyzed citizen narratives from personal interview data to assess how people in impacted local communities diagnose the differential problems associated with natural gas fracking—as well as offer policy solutions to those problems—particularly in shale communities outside the Marcellus and Barnett Shale regions of the United States. To address this gap in the literature, this study draws on existing sociological research, discursive documents, and in-depth interview data collected from stakeholder groups in the field to offer a more inclusive qualitative analysis of the environmental disputes and opportunity-threat impacts surrounding unconventional gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing in the Haynesville Shale region of Louisiana. Such an approach compliments recent qualitative research exploring how different forms of public discourse about hydraulic fracking can provide a richer, more contextualized understanding of why this nascent energy technology has generated such fierce support, apprehension, and opposition (Evensen, Clarke, and Stedman 2014; Hudgins and Poole 2014; Kinchy and Perry 2012; Poole and Hudgins 2014; Willow 2014; Willow et al. 2014). With the Haynesville Shale representing the second largest natural gas field (play) in the United States, as well as a region of the American south at the forefront of oil and gas development today, a deeper thematic exploration of how Louisiana residents perceive the benefits and risks of hydraulic fracturing in their community represents an important contribution to the existing literature.

Literature Review

Environmental and rural sociologists have often explored how residents and stakeholder groups respond to the “boom and bust” cycles of growth and decline that often accompany resource extraction and energy development (Albrecht 1978; Cortese and Jones 1977; Freudenburg 1981; Freudenburg and Frickel 1994; Gramling and Brabant 1986). Many studies demonstrate how residents’ perceptions tend to change during the temporal phases of a boomtown scenario from enthusiasm to uncertainty, panic, and finally adaptation (e.g., Brown, Dorius, and Krannich 2005; Brown, Geertsen, and Krannich 1989). Other research has found that community attitudes related to the impacts of oil and gas drilling can vary widely by historical, physical, and social conditions, including the type of resource development techniques being used (Forsyth, Luthra, and Bankston 2007; Freudenburg and Gramling 1993; Gramling and Freudenburg 1992, 2006).

Recent sociological and interdisciplinary research on public reactions to unconventional gas development in major shale communities has consistently documented a wide range of opportunity-threat impacts associated with hydraulic drilling and fracking (Anderson and Theodori 2009; Brasier et al. 2011; Kinne, Finewood, and Yoxtheimer 2014; Kriesky et al. 2013; Ladd 2013; Schafft, Borlu, and Glenna 2013; Theodori 2009, 2013; Weigle 2011; Wynveen 2011). In the Marcellus Shale region (the nation’s largest, most developed shale basin located primarily in Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia), for instance, Weigle (2011) identified more than 400 different citizen concerns related to the socioeconomic, environmental, political, and public health impacts of development. In another regional study, Brasier et al. (2011) found that the degree of support for shale development varied significantly by the level of development and previous extractive history in different communities. Similarly, Kriesky et al. (2013) found higher levels of support for shale gas drilling among those residents who had experienced the most drilling, stood to profit from mineral rights leases, saw energy development as an economic opportunity for the community, and believed that the environmental and public health impacts of drilling were minimal. More recent studies in the Marcellus region have further documented how public responses to fracking can be a function of exposure to different media discourse (Evensen et al. 2014), adherence to neoliberal values (Hudgins and Poole 2014; Malin 2014), or sense-of-place connections to local landscapes, resources, and family health concerns (Poole and Hudgins 2014; Willow 2014; Willow et al. 2014).

Researchers have also analyzed perceptions of gas development in the Barnett Shale region of eastern Texas. Theodori (2009), for example, not only found that respondents generally believed that Barnett Shale development had positively benefited the local economy and public services in various respects but also felt that it had negatively impacted the community in terms of increased truck traffic and freshwater use. In a follow-up study, Anderson and Theodori (2009) found that local leaders also believed that gas development had greatly stimulated economic prosperity for their communities but expressed fears that development had increased a variety of social and environmental problems, including adverse changes in the local power structure. In a recent Barnett Shale study, Theodori (2013) found increased negative perceptions of the social and environmental impacts of natural gas development and that such beliefs correlated with the willingness of individuals to voice complaints to local or government officials, as well as vote against political candidates who favored drilling and gas production.

Finally, in a thematic analysis of citizen comments contained in the 2009 Anderson and Theodori survey, Wynveen (2011) found that respondents in the Barnett Shale tended to view gas development as a positive economic benefit for the community in terms of infrastructural improvements, enhanced community services and schools, and increased leasing income for landowners with mineral rights, while also believing that gas development negatively affected local water resources, the landscape, quality of life, community identity, and character of the region. In a similar study of the Haynesville Shale region in Louisiana, Ladd (2013) found that while a majority of residents perceived that natural gas development offered the community a host of positive economic advantages, a substantial minority of residents also associated shale development with a greater range of negative socioenvironmental impacts and were skeptical of whether the overall benefits had been worth the risks.

In summary, the extant literature suggests that local-level unconventional gas development represents a significant paradox, if not double-edged sword, for impacted communities. Although most citizens tend to support the economic and/or service-related benefits they perceive as accompanying shale development, they also are concerned about or oppose its negative social and environmental impacts on residents (Ladd 2013; Schafft et al. 2013; Theodori 2009, 2013). While most existing studies serve to quantify the differential impacts that characterize people’s perceptions of unconventional energy development, what has been missing are more qualitative explorations of how people socially construct and articulate more nuanced, encompassing frames of discourse that critique the issues surrounding these impacts and offer proscriptive solutions. Indeed, recent studies suggest that people’s ideas about fracking tend to reflect evolving narratives about the history of a region’s extractive practices and sociopolitical interests, as well as lived experiences with family health problems, local landscapes, and water resources (Hudgins and Poole 2014; Kinchy and Perry 2012; Poole and Hudgins 2014; Willow 2014; Willow et al. 2014; Wynveen 2011).

Drawing on the seminal work of prominent social movement scholars examining the role of collective action frames in mobilizing constituents for social action (e.g., Benford 1993, 1997; Benford and Snow 2000; Noakes and Johnston 2005; Snow and Benford 1988, 1992; Snow et al. 1986), environmental sociologists have also used framing concepts and similar analytic tools to examine how competing groups socially construct a discursive interpretation of the environmental hazards, issues, and conflicts in their community (see, for example, Capek 1993; Gray 2003; Gunter and Kroll-Smith 2007; Krogman 1996; Ladd 2011; Messer, Shriver, and Kennedy 2009; Mika 2006; Mooney and Hunt 2009; Robinson 2009; Shriver 2001; Shriver, Adams, and Cable 2013; Shriver, Cable, and Kennedy 2008; Shriver and Kennedy 2005; Shriver and Peaden 2009; Shriver, White, and Kebede 1998; Vincent and Shriver 2009). In most environmental controversies, different stakeholders typically form a set of diagnostic beliefs about what they view as the problems at hand, as well as propose a set of prognostic actions or policies that should be adopted to solve these problems (Benford 1993; Krogman 1996; Vincent and Shriver 2009). As Shriver and Peaden (2009) argued, “Disputes emerge when there are conflicting definitions of environmental conditions and when there are differences regarding the actions needed to alleviate the problems” (p. 167). Thus, environmental controversies typically reflect conflicting diagnostic and prognostic attitudes that not only articulate key issues and potential courses of action but also serve to help citizens justify their own beliefs, discredit the opposition, and mobilize public support to influence future policy decisions (Gray 2003). To the extent that people generally provide accounts and adopt ideological positions that are consistent with their individual or group interests, the essential dynamics of any environmental dispute will be embodied in the narratives and discursive beliefs of different stakeholder groups (i.e., residents, workers, business owners, scientists, environmentalists, industry figures, government regulators, etc.) as they strive to assess, weigh, and respond to what they perceive as the most salient opportunity-threat impacts on their community (Forsyth et al. 2007; Gramling and Freudenburg 1992).

Given Louisiana’s prominent role in the history and future of oil and gas production in the United States (see Zebrowski and Leach 2014), disputes over the problems, solutions, advantages, and risks associated with hydraulic fracking in the Haynesville Shale represent an excellent case study for examining competing claims in a natural resource controversy. Although the Haynesville Shale basin represents a highly valued asset for the people of northern Louisiana, contending stakeholder groups interpret its energy exploration, benefits, and costs in divergent ways.

Research Methods and Data

The research site for this study was the Haynesville Shale region, a 9,000 square mile area of northwest Louisiana covering five parishes (counties) and the city of Shreveport. The 150-million-year-old shale formation is estimated to contain 66 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable natural gas, making it the second largest gas play in the nation with over 2,400 drilled wells (Lavelle 2012; Louisiana Department of Natural Resources 2012). Data sources such as recent scientific studies, industry publications, pro- and antifracking movement literature, news articles, press releases, Web sites, online sources, films, and various archival documents were systematically reviewed to identify the prominent issues, historical context, socioenvironmental impacts, and proposed policy solutions surrounding the debate over fracking. In addition, 35 in-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with residents, gas leaseholders, activists, industry spokespeople and professionals, business owners, scientists, and others who largely lived in the Haynesville Shale region and had direct knowledge of the issues. Those selected for interviews were identified by purposeful and snowball methods of sampling (see Kvale 2007) involving referrals provided by key informants and individuals in various stakeholder groups or occupational networks. The prospective subjects were contacted by phone or e-mail and provided with information about the purpose, scope, and format of the study. Each interviewee signed an Institutional Review Board (IRB) Informed Consent Form and the interviews were audio-recorded and subsequently transcribed verbatim. All the interviews were conducted between July and October of 2012, either at the subject’s home or office, and generally lasted from 45 to 90 minutes each.

The distribution of the stakeholders interviewed for this study included: 10 environmental scientists and geologists, 8 concerned citizens and gas leaseholders, 6 oil/gas industry professionals and operators, 4 environmental activists, 2 gas industry representatives, 2 parish/state government officials, 1 newspaper editor/reporter, 1 environmental attorney, and 1 top state regulatory official. With the exception of gender and race (only 5 females and 1 African American resident agreed to be interviewed), the respondents selected for this study were generally diverse in their demographic characteristics and held a wide range of beliefs about fracking. While the underrepresentation of females and African Americans in the sample poses some limitations on the generalizations that can be drawn from the data, the citizens that did participate in the study were nevertheless representative of the overwhelming white-male demographic base of residents associated with oil and gas production in Louisiana (Forsyth et al. 2007; Zebrowski and Leach 2014).

Using an interpretive thematic coding scheme commonly used in qualitative research (Kvale 2007), each interview transcript was systematically analyzed line by line to highlight those narrative accounts that articulated stakeholder perceptions of the key issues and differential impacts surrounding natural gas development and fracking in the Haynesville Shale. While the entire interview schedule consisted of more than 20 structured questions, the data analyzed here were derived from the narrative responses to a specific set of interview questions (see the appendix) that probed the respondent’s beliefs about the diagnostic problems and prognostic solutions related to Haynesville gas development, their perceptions of the opportunity-threat impacts associated with such development, whether they believed the benefits outweighed the costs or not, as well as other attitudes related to the importance and operation of the gas industry in the region. The data derived from this cross-section of stakeholder interviews allowed for a more comprehensive representation of the narrative voices and discursive beliefs that inform the fracking dispute than those explored in previous qualitative studies (Ladd 2013; Poole and Hudgins 2014; Willow 2014; Willow et al. 2014; Wynveen 2011). An additional strength of these data is that they were collected in the period following the initial Haynesville gas boom (2008–2011) after the pace of exploration and fracking in the area had peaked, declined, and stabilized. Consequently, residents were better able to distance themselves from the most turbulent period of the boomtown phase and reflect on the assorted energy development impacts on their community from a wider and more balanced perspective.

Analysis and Discussion

Diagnostic Disputes

For stakeholders who diagnosed Haynesville gas development and fracking as a beneficial opportunity for the community, one of the major problems expressed in their narratives dealt with the need for the United States to increase domestic energy production to foster economic growth and reduce its reliance on foreign sources of energy. A number of respondents equated natural gas with the goal of “energy security” and echoed the industry view that “a hundred years of natural gas was right beneath our feet.” Another energy company spokesperson remarked, “We spend a million dollars a minute importing foreign oil when we have a fuel source right here that can meet everything from our transportation to our manufacturing to our environmental needs.” Other respondents tied the issue of increased domestic energy production to the larger problem of the national economic recession and the need to produce more regional jobs. As one citizen noted, “the economy is such that we need more jobs and businesses that are related to oil and gas fracking.” Similarly, an energy company employee emphasized that Haynesville natural gas not only helped the United States reduce its energy imports but also created new export markets for the sale of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe and beyond.

Another major diagnostic problem identified was what many stakeholders perceived to be a decidedly negative image of fracking and the oil and gas industry in much of the public’s mind. Some respondents, especially those with direct ties to the energy industry, were particularly critical of what they viewed as the rampant amount of public misinformation about oil and gas production, the safety of fracking technology, its benign impacts on the land and water resources, and the excessive regulatory burdens on the industry. For instance, one oil and gas spokesperson was insistent that “the industry gets a lot of bad press; I call it ‘environmental terrorism.’” A number of respondents blamed filmmakers, the news media, and environmental activists for the public’s reluctance to embrace fracking:

The media publishes things like the burning faucet with methane gas and blames it on fracking, which is not accurate. It’s naturally occurring methane gas—biogenic gas—from decaying vegetation. It’s not oil and gas-related methane. (State Regulatory Official)

I’m very concerned about the activists that don’t have any knowledge and are just doing this nutso stuff—I don’t know what else there is to call it. They don’t understand [fracking], they really don’t, and the EPA is now being condemned because they can’t find contamination. The funny thing is, methane is not a contaminant; you produce methane and I produce methane. (Geologist)

These rich interview narratives reveal clear diagnostic assessments of the major problems citizens perceive regarding hydraulic fracking in their community. Typically, diagnostic disputes pertain to issues of problem identification and problem attribution, where individuals articulate the need to change specific social problems and hold culpable agents responsible for their existence (Benford 1993). For many stakeholders in this study, the most important problem facing the United States today is the need for increased domestic energy production to meet energy needs and create economic growth. Hydraulic fracturing is not perceived as an existing or potential problem, but rather an unqualified economic opportunity for the community and nation. For strong gas industry supporters especially, it is the “liberal news media” and assorted “environmental extremists” who are to blame for turning many Americans against oil and gas fracking, which has only exacerbated our larger energy and economic problems. Indeed, a number of these respondents quoted the popular mantra of “Drill Baby Drill!” to articulate their support for gas fracking.

On the opposing side of the fracking dispute were an extensive number of diagnostic claims expressing a range of socioeconomic problems associated with unconventional gas exploration. Many stakeholders, for example, expressed dismay over the increased truck traffic and damage to local roads, as well as how energy development had disrupted the rural landscape, harmed their properties, and introduced new risks to the community. Others talked extensively about their experiences with the noise, air pollution, smells, or vibrations caused by nearby fracking operations:

You can’t drive down any road without driving past a well site where it used to be trees and stuff. [There has been] wear and tear on the roads and a lot of people have lost their lives in DeSoto Parish because of accidents on the well sites . . . I know about two or three blowouts . . . The noise problems are not as bad for me as for people living near the drilling areas where they do the fracking. Once they start the fracking, I’ll be able to hear it even though it’s a quarter of a mile away and we will hear it in the house with the TV going. They stop at midnight and start again around daylight. (Gas Leaseholder)

Our parking lot got busted up when they were fracking next door. The whole building would shake. You could feel the vibrations because they were so close and they were so loud! We were told that they could have put up a sound barrier, but it would have cost them a lot of money. We’ve had a bombardment of traffic accidents. The smell is everywhere and it’s just horrible, like rotten eggs. (Concerned Citizen)

Although most residents perceived that shale development had created jobs, wealth, and assorted financial benefits for the region, some viewed the economic impacts of fracking through a more critical and cynical lens, emphasizing its limited job creation, unsustainable boom-and-bust impacts, and hidden carbon footprint. As one environmental scientist put it, “It keeps us chained to the fossil fuel industry, but there are just so many dead dinosaurs.” Moreover, drawing attention to the racial disparities associated with the Haynesville gas boom, the sole African American citizen in the study commented that “there may be only one or two African Americans that work for Chesapeake (oil and gas company) in this community (Mansfield). That’s not a good image in a city that is 74 percent African American.”

Although most respondents believed that the Haynesville had created an enormous tax windfall for local governments, as well as increased personal property values, one parish official observed that he had “seen property values actually go down where there’s a well that’s fairly close to it.” Another oil and gas professional lamented the fact that “only large landowners or employees with ties to the gas industry” really benefited economically from the Haynesville strike. Other respondents were especially angry over the financial inequities they had experienced regarding their leasing and royalty agreements with gas companies, one of the earliest sources of citizen opposition to fracking in other shale regions (Eisenberg 2010). As two gas leaseholders noted:

Historically, the gas industry has been very unfair to landowners. What set me off was when they signed a neighbor up for $350 an acre, then offered me $1,200 an acre in the same day. They would have people sign leases that were archaic at best and offer them no (environmental) protections. There were a lot of unfavorable practices to get people to sign on initially.

The negative impact was the way the energy companies went about leasing. Hurry up and sign here on this line! Sign my company’s lease! There was a lack of rights for property owners. Everyone I knew wished that they had not signed with the energy companies. They’re a bunch of crooks. I don’t care if you tell the world that, please do! All the big companies, I think they’re corrupt.

Other stakeholders viewed the rapid development of the Haynesville Shale as a problem that reflected the enormous wealth and power of the Louisiana oil and gas industry and its ability to manipulate the political system to serve its own economic interests. One environmental scientist, for example, said flatly, “The oil and gas industry owns the state [and] the local, state, and federal politicians tip toe very carefully around oil and gas interests,” while a parish official agreed that “Louisiana leaders and the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) just want to let the oil and gas industry do whatever it wants to do, even if it’s at the expense of the property owners and environment.” Finally, an environmental attorney summed up the critiques of a number of respondents when he argued,

The big picture is that the state and the legislature are becoming more and more beholden to the oil and gas industry. The energy companies put a lot [of money] into the legislature and that drives who gets elected and what kind of issues they’re going to raise because as the legislature gets more pro-industry, it’s going to be less inclined to worry about social justice or be concerned with social issues. Their money and power [has] no match and they get what they want.

As expected from previous studies (Anderson and Theodori 2009; Evensen et al. 2014; Ladd 2013; Theodori 2013; Wynveen 2011), the largest number of diagnostic narratives critical of shale development dealt with the myriad negative environmental impacts perceived to accompany fracking, particularly its depletion and/or contamination of local surface water and groundwater resources. For example, one citizen complained that local water tables and aquifers were dropping due to fracking and that “there were no (water) problems in those parishes prior to all this oil and gas exploration.” Another gas leaseholder was angry that “our water used to be crystal clear and have a good flavor, but now the water is literally brown,” while an environmental scientist detailed how the gas companies’ spills, leaks, and well-casing failures were contaminating ground and surface waters, as well as the air and soil.

In addition to the impacts on water resources, various stakeholders were also alarmed about the potential connection between natural gas fracking and various environmental health problems. As an environmental attorney pointed out, for example, “I don’t think the industry is being necessarily truthful and forthright about the dangers to human health and the environment.” Other respondents raised questions about the links between fracking fluids, drilling mud, and cancer, emphasizing, “It bothers me how many cancer cases might come from somebody drinking the water or breathing the air. I don’t think there have been enough studies.” Another citizen noted,

The chemicals they use to make the drilling mud, there are a lot of carcinogenic products in that. There is no regulation of it and they are allowed to keep the contents of the drilling mud secret under “trade secrets,” which means that you have no clue what they’re putting in there.

Finally, several narratives expressed concerns about the negative impacts of fracking sites on livestock, rig workers, and earthquakes. One gas leaseholder talked about the deaths of at least 15 local cows that had died from drinking spilled fracking fluids, as well as the deaths of four or five workers who had perished in different drilling rig explosions. Another environmental activist worried about the connection between fracking episodes and reports of increased earthquakes and seismic disruptions:

I’ve heard that the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) has come out and said that these deep well injection operations around fracking actually cause and exacerbate earthquakes, which to me is frightening as hell. We are doing things that are literally making the earth shake. (Environmental Activist)

In sharp contrast to shale development proponents, other residents identify fracking as a risky industrial technology that has negatively affected the region’s ground and surface waters, roads, air quality, landscape, livestock, property values, and workers. Additional problems such as drilling wastes, noise, potential earthquakes, and unfair leasing agreements, among other drawbacks, are also cited by respondents. Moreover, many residents connect the negative socioenvironmental impacts of Haynesville Shale development to the increasing economic and political power of the energy conglomerates over the state of Louisiana (Zebrowski and Leach 2014). Thus, within the diagnostic frame, the dispute does not pivot so much around competing claims over the alleged technological impacts or risks of fracking itself, but whether the larger demands for energy security, jobs, and fiscal revenues outweigh the socioenvironmental threats alleged by “ill-informed opponents.” In this regard, these data suggest that strong stakeholder support for fracking is underscored by a significant degree of diversionary reframing (Freudenburg and Gramling 1994), as well as support for neoliberal fiscal values (Hudgins and Poole 2014; Malin 2014; Willow 2014), discourses which both side-step the specific environmental complaints of critics, refocus the debate on larger macro issues tied to U.S. energy production and economic growth, and discredit the legitimacy and rationality of groups opposed to fracking. Indeed, in one of the most recent ad campaigns of the natural gas industry, both the abundance of domestic natural gas supplies and the ability of the industry to extract it safely for American consumers are proclaimed without any mention of the use or controversy over hydraulic fracking technology (see America’s Natural Gas Alliance 2013).

Prognostic Disputes

For stakeholders who viewed Haynesville Shale development in generally beneficial terms, the recent gas and fracking boom offered a ready-made solution to the U.S. energy crisis and the need for greater energy security. Many residents believed that Haynesville natural gas deposits were not only abundant but provided the nation with the opportunity to replace much of our existing use of coal and foreign oil with cleaner, domestic natural gas from Louisiana. Moreover, some respondents believed that Haynesville natural gas offered the region and nation an alternative, “environmentally friendly” fuel source that could power cars, buses, and factories that were currently dependent on oil and coal. A geologist with concerns about climate change, for example, stated, “We’ve dropped the CO₂ emission levels (in the U.S.) because of natural gas,” while an oil and gas operator described the resource as a “very clean burning fuel that’s good for the environment.” Other stakeholders were particularly enthusiastic about the role that natural gas could play as a compressed or liquefied transportation fuel for cars, trucks, or buses.

For the vast majority of residents, another key prognostic solution provided by the Haynesville Shale gas boom was its enormous economic impact on the Shreveport area and neighboring rural parishes, historically one of the poorest regions of the state. Respondents believed that shale development had improved the local economy, helped buffer the region from the corrosive impacts of the national recession, provided wealth for individual landowners, and created new job and employment opportunities. Indeed, a number of citizens subscribed to the local conventional wisdom that the Haynesville strike had “saved” northwestern Louisiana from the 2008 national recession, as well as created “overnight millionaires for probably hundreds and hundreds of people.” In addition, many stakeholders spoke at length about how the gas boom had provided the local parishes with infrastructural improvements, expanded public services, better schools, higher teacher salaries, and new businesses and restaurants:

There have been a lot of new businesses that have come in and a lot of old businesses that were limping along that have come back to life. Even the convenience store down the road has been having more customers and is busier. The teachers now make more than anyone else [in the state] because they give our teachers bonuses based on royalties that the school gets because the school owns land and it’s got minerals under it . . . Our Sheriff’s department has benefited greatly from it and our volunteer fire department built a new building. There have been a lot of positives. (Concerned Citizen/Local Activist)

These illustrative narrative accounts reveal key prognostic themes regarding the policies or tactics required to address the problems surrounding unconventional gas development. For many study respondents, hydraulic fracturing is viewed as a technological panacea and viable solution to the U.S. energy crisis, the economic recession, our dependence on foreign oil, and the impending impacts of increased CO₂ emissions and climate change. Shale gas from the Haynesville is seen not only as an abundant national energy source but also as an environmentally clean fuel that can be liquefied, exported, and used to power cars, buses, and factories. The most prominent theme expressed by these stakeholders, however, is that fracking has provided jobs, new economic opportunities, and increased tax revenues for parish and state governments, as well as individual wealth for landowners who can lease their mineral rights to gas companies. Consistent with the prognostic frame of the natural gas industry projected in their recent advertising campaign “Think About It” (America’s Natural Gas Alliance 2013), fracking is extolled by many Haynesville residents as one of the most promising strategies available for solving the nation’s problems concerning energy security, transportation, employment, and future economic growth.

In contrast, stakeholders who tended to emphasize the negative impacts of fracking proposed a wide range of solutions and polices that they believed could help solve some of the key problems associated with shale production. As expected from previous research (Anderson and Theodori 2009; Evensen et al. 2014; Ladd 2013), the threat posed to the quantity and quality of water resources dominated the concerns of most residents and landowners, with many calling for “more regulation” and “stricter water use laws” regarding how industry used local aquifers and groundwater in the extraction process. A number of respondents also cited fears that wastewaters and fracking fluids could contaminate freshwater supplies and called for full industry disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking fluids:

I think a very strong potential solution is recapturing and recycling as much of the fractured water as possible. I don’t know what the percentage is of water that is reclaimed after a frack, but I know it’s nowhere near what is used. I don’t think there’s enough protection with regards to the aquifers and what is being done to protect the residents and their freshwater supplies. (Oil and Gas Professional)

Stakeholder concerns that greater legal protections need to accompany the mineral leasing bonuses and royalty payments paid to property owners were another important part of the prognosis offered by critics. Other respondents called for such measures as changes to the state mineral code, the rights of landowners to negotiate their surface rights and mineral rights separately, greater industry disclosure of the hidden details in leasing contracts, as well as greater water protections for landowners. Moreover, many respondents talked extensively about the need for the gas industry to be more transparent and accountable to the public, as well as the state of Louisiana to regulate oil and gas development much more stringently, “to ensure that there is not environmental and human health damage as a result of shale gas development”:

I’d like to see more transparency from the gas industry. I think the industry has done a very poor job of educating the community with respect to fracking. They need to be going out in these communities and explaining exactly what’s going on and opening themselves up for some pretty tough questions . . . For one thing, I think the public deserves to know what’s in the fluids that are being pumped down in the ground under their property. (Environmental Activist)

As one citizen concluded, “the gas companies should have been held more accountable for the way they operated in our city. Things should have been a whole lot better.”

At the same time, however, other residents expressed cynicism about whether the State of Louisiana—given its historical economic dependence on the oil and gas industry—was even capable of effectively regulating the energy exploration processes surrounding hydraulic fracking. As one environmental scientist explained, “If it’s the oil and gas industry in Louisiana, any permitting is pretty much rubber-stamped.” Said another citizen, “They really need to increase the regulations to protect the environment; they can’t let the industry regulate themselves.”

To the extent that prognostic disputes express alternative visions of reality required to change the status quo (Benford 1993), these respondents articulate the need for state officials to adopt more stringent regulations to protect ground and surface waters from depletion or chemical contamination. Given the reliance of many of these rural residents on local aquifers, lakes, and rivers for their drinking water and irrigation needs, they strongly endorse the adoption of regulatory policies that conserve and protect freshwater resources. Indeed, the data revealed that four out of five Haynesville stakeholders saw the enormous volume of freshwater (three to seven million gallons typically) required to drill and fracture a single natural gas well as the most important single impact posed by development, followed by fears that groundwater pollution could occur from the migration of fracking fluids, methane, or drilling wastes into local water tables. Indeed, Haynesville residents parallel those of the Marcellus and Barnett shale regions in their concerns that fracking could not only deplete local water resources and potentially contaminate private wells and municipal drinking water sources but also damage local roads and cause more accidents from increased truck traffic and congestion (Anderson and Theodori 2009; Brasier et al. 2011; Evensen et al. 2014; Theodori 2009, 2013; Weigle 2011; Wynveen 2011). Finally, some respondents call for greater legal protections for landowners who lease their mineral rights to gas operators, as well as greater transparency and accountability of the gas industry to citizens and state agencies.

Overall, the prognostic dispute over fracking is characterized by a rather sharp ideological cleavage between stakeholders who advocate a free-market, neoliberal approach to energy development, which reframes community shale resources as a source of private profit (see Hudgins and Poole 2014; Malin 2014), and those who favor more comprehensive government regulations to protect public water resources and landowners from industry exploitation. Clearly, how citizens comprehend and weigh these opportunity-threat impacts has not only been found to be central to the critical public discourse over hydraulic fracking but also the extent to which such perceptions can influence future voting behavior, civic action, and other forms of political advocacy (Theodori 2013; Wright 2012).

Conclusion

The findings of this study support and extend existing research exploring how residents in various shale regions assess the differential opportunity-threat impacts associated with unconventional energy development and hydraulic fracturing in their communities. Paralleling other local fracking disputes in the Marcellus and Barnett Shale regions of the United States, Haynesville stakeholders generally favor the economic and/or service-related benefits they perceive as accompanying shale development, yet are concerned about or oppose its negative socioenvironmental impacts on the community—particularly its threats to water resources, roads, and traffic (Brasier et al. 2011; Evensen et al. 2014; Ladd 2013; Schafft et al. 2013; Theodori 2009, 2013; Weigle 2011). These qualitative data not only serve to illustrate the major claims and counterclaims that characterize the Haynesville fracking debate but also help to articulate some of the more popular frames of discourse in the public arena that tie such beliefs to residents’ lived experiences with oil and gas extraction, economic gain, or environmental risk.

This research also illuminates the importance of qualitative analysis for the study of natural resource controversies like fracking and its utility in bringing the clash of worldviews that define contemporary environmental conflicts into sharper focus (Gray 2003). Although past research has largely used quantitative survey data to identify the contrasting positive and negative socioenvironmental impacts associated with unconventional shale gas development (Anderson and Theodori 2009; Brasier et al. 2011; Kriesky et al. 2013; Schafft et al. 2013; Theodori 2009, 2013; Weigle 2011), this study compliments recent participant–observer and ethnographic research that examines the fracking controversy within larger state, industry, and media frames of discourse; the environmental and cultural experiences of citizens; and the sociopolitical structures of impacted communities (Hudgins and Poole 2014; Kinchy and Perry 2012; Poole and Hudgins 2014; Willow et al. 2014). Taken as a whole, these studies help us better understand some of the qualitative dynamics of fracking and why shale gas development has attracted the degree of unwavering support, as well as unease and resistance, that it has in recent years. These insights also suggest some important questions for further research and analysis.

One such question concerns the specific mechanisms through which stakeholder narratives are socially constructed, interpreted, and potentially acted upon. On one hand, the profracking perspective expressed by many Louisiana residents resonates closely with the corporate official frame (see Messer, Adams, and Shriver 2012; Messer et al. 2009) articulated by the U.S. oil and gas industry, a hegemonic narrative deployed to extol the myriad energy and economic benefits of the “Natural Gas Revolution” without drawing negative attention to its reliance on hydraulic fracturing or the claims of its critics (America’s Natural Gas Alliance 2013; Friedman 2012; Levi 2011; Yergin 2011). On the other hand, residents who are unsure or opposed to the impacts of fracking on water, air, climate, rural landscapes, wildlife, and public health articulate narratives that are clearly aligned with the themes of antifracking movement activists in key shale regions across the country (Goodell 2012; Hayden 2013; Hightower 2012; Lohan 2013; Zaitchik 2012). In highlighting the importance of citizen narratives to the framing of civic controversies, for example, Steward, Shriver, and Chasteen (2002) argued that “narratives are the central mechanism by which frames are produced and circulated and through which identities are forged” (p. 114). Once stakeholders adopt a given frame, their narratives become shaped by that frame, which in turn can help drive and legitimate wider agendas for social change (Powell 2011). Evensen et al. (2014) also pointed to the role that information creators and exchangers in the media play in selectively bringing certain issues about shale development to the forefront of the public’s consciousness—while ignoring others—and how such forms of knowledge and rhetoric can shape the political will that impacts future energy policy. Although clearly beyond the limitations of this study, more research is needed on the micro-level narratives of individuals and how they not only reflect various forms of institutional discourse but also contribute to the larger collective action frames that define environmental protest opportunities (Capek 1993; Robinson 2009).

Another issue raised by this study is the need for researchers to question the commonplace assumption that environmental disputes set the stage for wider acts of movement mobilization, political protest, or rancorous policy debate (e.g., Benford 1993; Gray 2003; Krogman 1996; McAdam and Boudet 2012; Vincent and Shriver 2009). To the contrary, these data suggest that competing narratives can coexist in a resource controversy without the emergence of overt conflict, community polarization, or episodes of social unrest (Noakes and Johnston 2005). Despite the cultural divide between citizens over the relative merits and risks of shale gas development in Louisiana, it is clear that the issue of hydraulic fracking in the Haynesville has not generated the kind of heated public discourse or contentious conflict witnessed in other shale regions (Fox 2010, 2013; Ladd 2013; Schleifstein 2011; Willow et al. 2014). In fact, given the state’s unique historical, physical, and social conditions, Louisiana residents have long shown a high degree of comfort with the oil and gas industry, implicitly trusting it to create jobs and wealth, ensure worker safety, and protect the environment—despite all evidence to the contrary (Zebrowski and Leach 2014). Moreover, it has been argued that Louisianans have historically viewed fossil fuel extraction technologies more favorably than people in other regions of the country due to their comparatively low educational levels, extractive orientation toward the biophysical environment, favorable patterns of contact with industry personnel, and extensive prior adaption to energy development (Forsyth et al. 2007; Gramling and Freudenburg 1992, 2006). This sociopolitical worldview was particularly evident after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster of 2010, where the only topic more politically unpopular with Louisiana citizens than British Petroleum (BP) was the Obama Administration’s federal moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (Freudenburg and Gramling 2011; Zebrowski and Leach 2014).

However, whether the same degree of industry support will hold true for the newer and potentially riskier impacts created by intensive hydraulic fracking remains unclear, particularly given the everyday noise, odors, vibrations, and disruptive impacts of drilling that many residents will directly experience in their own backyards. Conversely, it is also possible that some citizens will be more likely to accept fracking out of their sense that their land and water resources have already been degraded past the point where public opposition could make a difference (Poole and Hudgins 2014). Similar to their counterparts in several Marcellus Shale counties (Brasier et al. 2011; Schafft et al. 2013), most Haynesville respondents view shale gas development as a double-edged sword of positive and negative impacts for the community. Nevertheless, despite the general quiescence and reluctance of stakeholders to openly challenge the Louisiana gas industry’s exploration practices and impacts, future media reports of aquifer contamination, well blowouts, drilling accidents, worker fatalities, animal deaths, or other problems could potentially ignite the existing undercurrent of ambivalence and skepticism about shale fracking identified in this study. As Johnson and Frickel (2011) argued, the potential for protest mobilization at the local level is always present when new environmental threats, especially those previously labeled as “impossible,” manifest themselves and are viewed as leading to the degradation of existing resources.

Whatever the long-term prospects for shale gas development in the Haynesville Shale (including oil and gas exploration in the neighboring Tuscaloosa and Brown Dense Shale regions of northern Louisiana), the controversy over hydraulic fracturing has already become part of the national energy debate. With natural gas extraction levels and market prices rebounding from their previous downturn of the last two years, the oil and gas industry is now pressing ahead to drill on the nearly 180 million acres of private, state, and federal land it has leased across the country—an area far greater than the states of California and Florida combined (Krauss and Lipton 2012; Mall 2013). Dozens of new communities in North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina, and California are being targeted for oil and gas development, including the city of Los Angeles and the Pacific waters off the coast of Santa Barbara where the nation’s first major oil spill disaster took place (Bacher 2013; Ludwig 2013; Upton 2013c). Clashes in the courts and legislatures between advocates and opponents are also likely to grow, particularly in states with large population centers and extensive shale deposits (Thetford 2013). As the debate heats up, citizen groups are taking science into their own hands (Frickel and Gross 2005) and initiating community monitoring efforts out of fears that fracking will contaminate local water tables through leaking wastewater ponds, injection methods, faulty wells, or fracking fissures (Jalbert, Kinchy, and Perry 2014; Lavelle 2012). Increasingly, new concerns over the technology’s impacts on public health, deforestation, real estate values, mortgage lending practices, methane emissions, radioactivity levels, farming and farm animals, tourism, free speech, and American democracy itself are gaining increasing visibility in both the media and political arena (Drouin 2013; Food & Water Watch 2013; Fox 2013; Hightower 2013; Upton 2013d). Given the Obama Administration’s concerted push for more domestic shale gas development as a key plank in their “all of the above” energy platform, environmentalists and “fracktivists” are increasingly finding themselves at odds with almost the entire Democratic Party coalition in many regions of the country (Food & Water Watch 2013; Hymas 2013).

The public debate in the United States today over gas (and oil) fracking has become a flashpoint in the wider environmental dispute between proponents who see shale gas as the future energy source of the planet and opponents who view it as the last gasp of a dying fossil fuel era. Between these polarized views rest a diverse set of attitudes held by citizens, government regulators, industry officials, scientists, environmentalists, and other stakeholders expressing a wide range of concerns over the opportunity-threat impacts surrounding local shale drilling and extraction. These differential perceptions must be further studied and better understood if social scientists, policymakers, and citizens are to adequately navigate the difficult political complexities and landmines associated with the socioenvironmental and public health impacts of hydraulic fracking (Schafft et al. 2013). Future research must also address the longitudinal public responses to unconventional energy development as boomtown conditions rise and fall, as well as track how these changes influence the emergence of citizen water monitoring programs, community mitigation and adaption responses, political opposition, and support for alternative energy technologies, as well as greater state and federal regulatory oversight. Above all, future sociological research must link the rising tide of community conflicts surrounding energy development to larger global and geopolitical realities that transcend local concerns, particularly the agenda of the multinational energy conglomerates to shift American dependence to new unconventional fossil fuels extracted from the Arctic, oceans, and shale regions through hydraulic fracturing (Kinne et al. 2014; Klare 2013). Clearly, how citizens perceive the growing social and environmental impacts of oil and natural gas exploration in their communities will be a decisive factor in explaining what policies and technologies they are likely to support to address future energy needs.

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to Molly Alper for her work on transcribing the interview data for this project.

Author’s Note

This article is a significantly revised version of an earlier paper presented at the annual American Sociological Association meetings, August 10–13, 2013, New York.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support for this research was provided by funds from the Loyola University Marquette Fellowship and Faculty Research Grant Committees.

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