Fracking protesters gather Sunday before a giant papier-mache pig along Mount Jackson Road in South Beaver, Lawrence County. The protesters chose the pig because of a drilling site019s proximity to a nearby organic farm, where pigs are raised, and what they termed a 01Cpiggish gas industry. (Julia Rendleman/Post-Gazette)

By Janice Crompton 

January 28, 2013 – Maggie Henry won’t feed her livestock soybeans because she is worried that the beans have been genetically modified. Instead, the organic farmer from South Beaver, Lawrence County, grows her own wheat and other grains to feed her pigs, chickens, cows and other livestock.

But that isn’t Mrs. Henry’s chief concern these days.

Just 4,100 feet from Mrs. Henry’s green pastures lies a gas well operated by Shell Appalachia.

And Mrs. Henry isn’t the only local resident concerned about the well, where a group of about two dozen activists staged a protest Sunday afternoon.

With shirts that read "Protect Farms for our Future," four of the protesters latched themselves to a 7-foot by 12-foot papier-mache pig, meant to represent the "piggish gas industry," Mrs. Henry said, as well as the livestock at her farm.

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