Day 1, Part 1: Dimock
Ellie and I left Rochester around 8:30 AM on Friday morning and arrived in Dimock, Pennsylvania around noon. When I think about people who don’t have access to drinking water, my mind immediately goes to people in third world countries. I think of women walking miles everyday to a river to get a pail of water. I couldn’t believe it was only a three and a half hour drive from my house to a place where people couldn’t turn on a faucet and drink their water. We arrived not sure what the town was like or where to go.
Driving into Dimock, we passed a farm with horses who were placed feet away from a stream. I had heard that farm animals have been effected, so Ellie and I stopped to take pictures of the horses. I cannot be certain that this is directly related to fracking, but I have never seen a horse like this and it’s just a little eerie it was the first animal we stopped to see in Dimock. The horse had tumors in both of it’s eyes.
When we got into Dimock, we expected to see those anti-fracking signs that you see everywhere. However, instead, we saw these “Dimock Proud” signs everywhere. As soon as we arrived in the town, we got an overwhelming sense of hostility. These signs did not assure us that everything was okay in the town. Why would you need to plaster signs around your town assuring people your water is clean and you people are nice if nothing is wrong?
It quickly became apparent how much of a grasp Cabot Oil and Gas Company had on Dimock. The beautiful landscape was interrupted by these fracking sites way more often than Ellie and I had expected. From watching news reports, we knew that Carter Road was where Dimock families had contaminated water. So we headed to Carter Road..
(Source: laurensphotojournal)
