Editor’s Note: This is the first in a seven-part series on natural gas drilling gleaned from a recent staff outing to Pennsylvania. It will continue each Thursday in The Evening Sun.

The Evening Sun staff traveled to Montrose and Dimock, Pa. on Dec. 7, 2010 to obtain first-hand accounts about drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, the resulting impact on those communities, and, ultimately, to draw for readers a picture depicting what Chenango County could expect if shale gas drilling were permitted here.

It was a cold, snowy day on the drive down, but it took less time than planned to reach the widely-publicized epicenter of the nation’s focus on shale drilling. We drove through the Susquehanna County capital of Montrose, noting the glassy reservoir that feeds it to our left, but, surprisingly, saw no anti-drilling signs on people’s lawns. Only upon reaching our destination of Carter Road in Dimock did we finally see any anti-drilling sentiment.

Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.’s admitted drilling accident that allegedly polluted 18 Carter Road area residents’ wells has grabbed headlines, and the company eventually paid $4.1 million to the residents with contaminated wells and $500,000 to partially offset the state’s investigation into the cause of well contamination. Reporter Brian Golden scored an interview with one of the affected families, and in the next article of this seven-part series, he’ll describe their sentiments and the Dimock disaster in detail.