In Pennsylvania, a band of citizen activists has fought back. Among them are retired coal miners and steelworkers whose activism is rooted in the long history of labor unions in the state. Historically Democrats, most are also socially conservative hunters and fishers. Many were Trump voters who adhere to neither party and resist easy political classification. They view themselves not as environmentalists — a word that many see as carrying a dubious “liberal” agenda — but as conservationists, who believe in the wise use of resources for the benefit of humankind.

Since 2011, I’ve attended community meetings with these activists. At one such gathering, I met Stacey Haney, a single mother and nurse, and an avid hunter whose father, like many of the men in attendance, was a Vietnam combat veteran and an out-of-work steelworker. Ms. Haney, like others, was skeptical of corporate interests but far more suspicious of the federal government and of outsiders coming to Appalachia to wag fingers at poor people for signing mineral leases that helped them hold on to their farms.

Ms. Haney was proud to sign a lease on her small plot of land. She hoped it would earn her enough money to build her dream barn, but the act also had patriotic implications. She believed that as a daughter of a veteran, she had a duty to help keep American soldiers at home, instead of in the Middle East fighting foreign entanglements linked to oil. The promise of American energy independence would keep Americans safe and support an industrial resurgence in the rust belt. For all of these reasons, Ms. Haney was a staunch supporter of fracking.

Then an oil-and-gas operation began atop a hill about a quarter of a mile from her home. The industrial site included a vast open waste pond that leaked and sent noxious gases into the air. After her farm animals and her children developed mysterious illnesses, Ms. Haney grew fearful about potential exposure and abandoned the farm, which had once belonged to her great-grandfather. Ms. Haney became an outspoken activist. She sued the corporation that she believed had sickened her children; then she took on the state.

In 2012, along with a team of lawyers who represented small towns, Ms. Haney challenged a revision to Pennsylvania’s oil and gas law. This law would remove the rights of small towns to determine where drillers could operate. The towns battled it, arguing they had a duty to protect their citizens. To bolster their claim, they relied on an obscure amendment to the Bill of Rights in the Pennsylvania Constitution, the Environmental Rights Amendment, which guaranteed all citizens the right “to clean air and pure water.” The argument for the amendment was based directly on Pennsylvania’s history with coal companies leaving citizens with poisoned air and toxic water. This, the amendment underscored, involved a basic violation of individual rights.

Although on its surface the Environmental Rights Amendment sounded like a “liberal” cause, its basis was essentially conservative: the belief that citizens and communities had the right to govern themselves and could not be steamrollered by large corporations or federal agencies. In a 4-2 decision, the conservative bench of the state Supreme Court found in favor of Ms. Haney’s side. The small towns won.