"These guys were just trying to run over the top of us," said Roupp.
Dubbed the "King of Marcellus Shale" by Fortune, Texas-based Range operates about 500 wells in Pennsylvania and employs 850 people - almost as many as populate Cogan House, a Lycoming County municipality with an annual budget of $100,000.
A rural crossroads of about 1,000 residents, the township - named for the first settler to build a log cabin there, in 1825 - is set amid forests and game lands in north-central Pennsylvania. Per capita income is just $15,000. A forlorn announcement on the township website says the Old Time Country Fair - an heir to the old Birch Stills Festival, named for liquor "stills" that once supplemented farmers' and lumbermen's pay - is being canceled this year for lack of volunteers.
Range, which has been drilling in Pennsylvania for 30 years and in Cogan House since about 2006, says it recently revived operations there as the economy began picking up.
Access to three drill rigs is along Buckhorn Road, 26 miles northwest of Williamsport, where rainwater runoff flows into several environmentally sensitive streams.
Before drilling began in April, the road led only to hunting camps and drew no more than 10 vehicles daily. Today, it gets as many as 200 tractor-trailers hauling sand and heavy equipment during peak drilling.
Roupp said the township, which is charged with maintaining the road and is liable for environmental damage caused by its degradation, had been asking Range to repair the road for nine months, as record rainfalls caused further deterioration.
"They kept saying, 'We'll get to it,' " Roupp said Thursday in a telephone interview.
