[jbawgs]

There isn't anywhere else I'd rather be. Before I joined a program in Hazard like the one mentioned in the article, I was in construction for 15 years, and I've been a lot of places. Appalachia is the best place though. We could also stand to have an influx of bright young people with a broader view.

[rybosome]

Do you feel that a lot of your friends and family are open to this type of development? I haven't ever seen surveys gauging local public opinion, but I had assumed that the foremost economic issue for Kentucky was coal, and the focus was on preventing legislation which would harm that market.

[jbawgs]

In general, the fervor surrounding coal stems from the fact that for a long time it was the only industry where a person could bring home more than minimum wage, and see the decline of the industry as a personal attack.

What the people really want is work. The article tells the tale - a thousand applicants for a handful of positions. The program I'm in had hundreds of applicants for only ten positions.

To me, too much money has been spent trying to resuscitate the coal industry when it could have been directed at new industries. The politics of it all doesn't interest me, and it wouldn't interest the legion of skilled technical personnel now clamoring for even minimum wage jobs if they had somewhere else to go (aside from relocate entirely).

[mauvehaus]

As an outsider who has spent a fair amount of time in the area (climbing in the Red River Gorge area, specifically), thanks for shedding some light on the politics and mentality of the area.

Can you shed any light on how the oil industry is viewed, how many people it employs, etc? I've really only ever been down to the area on the weekends, and while a lot of the climbing access is via oil company roads, I've never seen any oil workers or trucks. Is this because the industry doesn't employ many people, or just because they don't work weekends?

Incidental fun fact, the Gallery climbing area has a huge overhang (15-20 meters horizontally, 20-30 vertically) where there's a well casing that goes from the ceiling to the floor for no apparent reason. Presumably there's an oil jack up top, but I'm curious why the well is located there...

Thanks for your informative participation throughout this discussion.

[Animats]

Oil fields used to employ people only during the drilling phase. Once in production, they're mostly unattended. The classic oil field is a spread-out collection of pumpjacks running endlessly with nobody around.

Fracking operations, though, are complicated. There's usually a sizable site from which directional drilling spreads out underground. There's water, sand, and hydrochloric acid going down the holes, and mixed oil, gas, and sludge coming up. Lots of trucking activity.[1]

[1] https://www.fractracker.org/resources/oil-and-gas-101/explor...