“I HONESTLY thought it was a joke,” says Sandy Pinney. She means the threat that Windsor, her hometown, along with 14 other towns along New York’s border with Pennsylvania, may secede and join Pennsylvania. But it is deadly serious.
The towns are in New York’s Southern Tier. They sit on top of the Marcellus Shale, which is full of natural gas. New Yorkers, unlike their Pennsylvanian neighbours, are not allowed to tap the gas because of a state ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) announced by Andrew Cuomo, the governor, on December 17th.
It's remarkable that these people in New York State can look at their near-neighbours' homes being destroyed by earthquakes, their drinking water poisoned, their livestock killed, their domestic appliances turned into flamethrowers and they actually want to share in the carnage! And they are saying that if their political leaders prevent it then they are willing to jump ship and transfer their allegiance to Pennsylvania in order to ensure that they jolly well can have their lives ruined.
Some people eh?