‘energy, explained’ podcast: How one family lost the farm to a failed pipeline project

• Susan Phillips
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.
• Scott Blanchard/WITF
  BioRecent Stories

  

  As director of journalism, I work on things like newsroom strategy, culture, ethics, and training; I work with reporters (mainly climate reporter Rachel McDevitt) on stories; and I'm deeply involved with our community engagement efforts and collaborations with other news organizations.
  
  My roots in journalism go back to growing up outside Washington, D.C., reading Woodward and Bernstein in my hometown paper, and being drawn to the ideals of freedom of the press and holding the powerful to account. I also idolized the Post’s sports columnists, and in fact was a sports reporter/editor before I moved to news.
  
  I followed journalism’s call to the University of Missouri, then to jobs in Virginia and Maryland before landing in Pennsylvania, and I’ve lived near Gettysburg for more than two decades. Living in rural Pa. helps inform my work as a journalist and my belief that listening is one of the most important things we can do.
  
  If I’m not doing journalism stuff, I may be traveling, bird-watching, or both.

Jon Hurdle

Trees cut on a Susquehanna County property in March 2016 to make way for the proposed Constitution Pipeline. The company has said it will fight a FERC order upholding New York State's denial of a permit for the project.

The Hollerans said they didn’t want the pipeline on their land, and thought that was the end of it.

They were wrong. A federal judge eventually gave the pipeline builder a chunk of the Hollerans’ land, and acres of maple trees soon fell to chainsaws.

But this story would take an unexpected turn — one that the family hopes might allow them to get their land back one day.

In the latest episode of “energy, explained,” the new podcast from StateImpact Pennsylvania, Megan Holleran tells her family’s story to StateImpact’s Susan Phillips:

How surprise turned to resolve after the pipeline company said it wanted to use the family’s land. How a court sided with the company. How family members, initially united in opposition to the pipeline, took different sides after being threatened with arrests and fines if they continued to protest. And how the family hasn’t given up yet.

Listen here:

Jon Hurdle contributed reporting to the Hollerans’ tale — “Maple trees vs. natural gas: How one family lost the farm to a failed pipeline project” — which is episode 2 of “energy, explained.” In episode 1, “A very controversial pipeline,” StateImpact Pennsylvania’s Reid Frazier talked with reporters Phillips and Hurdle about the Mariner East 2 pipeline project — its troubled past and its future.

“energy, explained” goes behind the stories of Pennsylvania’s complex and consequential energy economy and the decisions that affect people across the state. It is available on iTunes or wherever you find podcasts.

It’s part of StateImpact Pennsylvania’s broadened geographical reach. In the past year, the public-media reporting collaboration has added two Pittsburgh-based reporters, Frazier of The Allegheny Front and Amy Sisk of WESA, to the team that already included Harrisburg-based Marie Cusick of WITF and Philadelphia-based Phillips of WHYY.

StateImpact expanded its coverage footprint, too, beyond the shale gas boom. Its authoritative reporting focuses on the ongoing energy transition: from the struggles of the coal and nuclear industries to the rapid rise of natural gas and renewable energy.

If you have an idea for a podcast episode, let us know.

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About StateImpact Pennsylvania

StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.

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