Environment

3411e0d02eae09084d0f6a706700d9e9.jpg

In this Dec. 23, 2013 photograph, Amite County Supervisor Max Lawson describes the convoy of about 200 trucks carting in a drilling rig and other gear on what was pasture land at his Gillsburg, Miss., farm. After a little more than a two-year wait, Encana Corp., contractors were finally drilling. Oil companies plan a big increase in drilling activity in 2014 in southwest Mississippi. They're trying to extract oil from a formation called the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, which one study says could hold 7 billion barrels. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)