The controversial method of natural gas production known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" has emerged as a key campaign issue in the 2024 US presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, given its importance to voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. George Wherry's bucolic family farm lies in the southwestern county of Washington, a largely rural corner part of southwestern Pennsylvania where Donald Trump won more than 60 percent of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. The 360-acre site is home to a flock of more than 500 sheep, a small herd of beef cattle for personal consumption, and a fracking "pad": three deep wells extending thousands of feet beneath the earth's surface to reach the abundant natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation below. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES ARRANGED IN SEQUENCES