If you are curious about geothermal heating systems — or if you have a toddler who loves construction equipment — stop by Cedar Lane in Princeton today (Monday, July 19) to see a Really Big Machine drill 300 feet down into my front lawn and make a Really Big Mess. Please park far away and don’t get in the way. You’ll hear it from afar.

The rig arrived a day early, before we had a chance to warn our neighbors. I thought briefly about playing a practical joke, telling them that we had struck oil, or that they were mining for natural gas.

But it turns out that’s no joke. Upstate New York residents, where natural gas is indeed being mined, have found that their “windfall” of cash from selling drilling rights resulted in the pollution of their aquifer. Read it here.

Josh Fox (no relation) has made , Gasland, a documentary about it, which is being aired on HBO, likely to be featured at Princeton Public Library’s environmental film festival in January.

The reformers are at work.

Here in our neighborhood the Delaware River Basin Commission promises the drillers to hold hearings on strengthening or weakening its moratorium on natural gas drilling in the river basin. For the AP story click here.

Though I belatedly apologized to my neighbors, one already has geothermal and two more — seeing the process — are interested.