Maja and her husband Maciej were driving along the two-lane that runs past a village where they own a plot of land, called Niestkowo. It was night, so they were surprised to see orange sky up ahead. “We saw this huge metal mast, with plenty of lights on it,” she says. “It was actually as bright as if it was day. And we were just, 'oh my God what's this?'”

What they saw was a rig for shale gas exploration, one of dozens that have popped up across northern Poland. It came as a complete surprise for Maja and Maciej, especially when they saw it was less than a mile away from their land. There had been no prior notification from the local government or the company.

Maja and Maciej have a young child, and they live in the northern Polish city of Słupsk. Their dream, though, is to move out to their land near Niestkowo. They want to build a home and settle into a pastoral life, maybe raise a few horses, and watch their daughter grow.

Terrified

But shale gas threatened to change all that. Any drill rigging would sit right outside their bedroom window. Maja was racked with doubt: “should we go this way that we've planned for years and years and years? Or should we stop planning and change completely our life? We don't know … we are just terrified.”

After doing research online, they have become amateur campaigners against shale gas. Their main concern is the unknown, unintended consequences – on the water, on the wildlife, and on the tourism lured by the local ecosystem.

Gazprom

They're also a minority. The anticipation in Poland is palpable at the possibility of massive shale gas reserves, the largest in Europe. And unlike France, which banned “fracking,” the controversial technique of shale gas extraction, Poland has no real environmental opposition.

The reason, according to analysts, has to do with where Poland gets its gas now: Russia, and its gas company, Gazprom. If Poland has an easily-exploitable shale reserve, it could become energy-independent, and possibly a net exporter of gas.

To be against shale gas is to be against Poland

Protecting the natural environment may be an uphill battle. “There is no special environmental law concerning shale gas. In fact, I don't see any need for that,” says Piotr Otawski, with the Polish ministry of the environment. The existing rules, according to Otawski, require a case-by-case analysis of any major project.

If there are thousands of shale gas wells, the Polish government will have thousands of rulings to make on fracking materials, environmental impact, and effects on local communities. One can only wonder who could match all of those applications with a concerted opposition.

In Niestkowo, local opposition has won – but not through a balance of energy needs and environmental resources. Rather, the exploratory well dug outside Maja's future bedroom window found gas that wasn't easy enough to get out of the ground.

So the gas companies will look elsewhere for a way to get to the fuel – and the dispute over fracking will shuffle off to another part of the country.

Earth Beat has more fracking stories and debate in the latest edition - Out of Place.

More - The Economist: Fracking heaven - Other Europeans fear fracking. Poland is steaming ahead.

Forbes - Exxon's Polish Fracking Plans Hit Air Pocket.