"I honestly thought it was a joke," A says Sandy Pinney. She means the threat that Windsor, her hometown, along with 14 other towns along New York's border with Pennsylvania, may secede and join Pennsylvania. But it is deadly serious. The towns are in New York's Southern Tier. They sit on top of the Marcellus Shale, which is full of natural gas. New Yorkers, unlike their Pennsylvanian neighbours, are not allowed to tap the gas because of a state ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) announced by Andrew Cuomo, the governor, on December 17th. Hours later on the same day, a state panel rejected a bid to build a casino in the Southern Tier. That was the last straw. A state lawmaker sent a survey to constituents asking about secession, and the idea began to take hold.
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