FrackNation Page #3

And that is very far away

from the water table.

To keep the water going down

and the gas going up inside

the pipe, and everything else,

outside the pipe there is layer

after layer of steel and cement.

What's new is that before,

every time geologists

discovered oil and gas,

they had to drill

right there to get it.

So there were lots of holes

in the ground.

But then someone who is much better

at math and science than me

thought up how to angle

the drilling bit

so it goes not only down,

but sideways.

Now the engineers did not have to

drill directly above their target,

so they could,

often together with farmers,

choose where to put the gas wells.

And from one pad they could

drill in many different directions.

So suddenly there were far

fewer drilling sites around.

Then, deep underground, water

and sand with chemical additives

are pushed out to open tiny cracks

in the rock to set the gas free.

And then the engineers

bring back the hills,

grass and animals around the well.

It's called "reclamation."

And from then on, the gas can flow up

the pipes, into people's homes

for another 20, 30, or even 40 years.

This is not new technology.

Fracturing has been going on here

continuously since

its inception 60 years ago.

The equipment's the same,

the pumps are the same,

the iron's the same,

the standards are the same.

What's different is what

we are fracking is shale.

It's the formation, it's not

the process that's different.

These guys have many years

of experience doing this.

Anyone on this location has

the ability to shut down this job.

If they see something

that they see as unsafe,

they can shut down this job.

So if I was to leave here and jump

on top of one of those tanks...

We would shut this job down

in a heartbeat, yeah.

I've been working in

Pennsylvania since 2008,

so I've been here three years.

We've been married 19 years,

and we've moved 22 times.

And now we just recently

moved back to Pennsylvania.

Tony grew up in

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania,

and we both attended Penn State.

Two of our children were born here.

So we call this home.

We love it here.

This is a beautiful place to live.

So why would we come in here

and want to purposely destroy that?

What is the benefit to us? What kind

of business sense does it make

to come in and try to pollute

the drinking water of an area?

It's ludicrous.

It's a ludicrous claim.

What do you think

the popular perception of fracking is?

First of all, the perception

that they're getting

about fracturing is the entire

drilling completions

and production process is fracking,

which is totally not the case.

Fracking is one part

of a much bigger process,

and it's three days in the life

of a well that's gonna last 40 years.

But what about the claim

that fracking is completely unregulated?

Environmentalists say

that the 2005 Energy Bill

removed all regulation

from fracking

and left the public unprotected.

They even had a catchy name for it:

"the Halliburton Loophole."

But that wasn't true.

Oil and gas drilling always has,

for over 100 years, been heavily

regulated by individual states.

The permit's just

to construct the well,

include conducting

a PNDI search, an ESEGP1.

You have to test water purveyors

within 1,000 feet of the location,

township approvals,

pre-construction and pre-drill.

We screen for cultural resources,

we find anything we have to do.

Phase one and phase two.

Survey the location,

stream crossing permits,

water management planning.

That would include a study

of the impact of habitats of fish.

For any impoundments

you're gonna build,

you're gonna need

another ESEGP1.

You're gonna need a dam permit

for any pipelines,

any compression, any processing

that you're gonna need.

You're gonna need all those

same permits as well.

ESEGP1, PNDI, cultural resources,

an emissions permit as well.

And then there's the drilling permit

itself that you have to apply for,

and that's the only one that's really

concerned about the well.

So there's numerous permits

that you have to get,

all in advance before

doing anything.

So our planning cycle is anywhere

from two to three years

in advance of doing any kind

of drilling or completions.

The 2005 bill

didn't create any loophole.

It just kept a huge number

of regulations

where they've always been,

at the state level.

The bill was passed after Republicans

and Democrats supported it.

Even Senator Barack Obama

voted for the legislation.

Just over the hill from Dimock

is the town of Montrose.

There's no moratorium there.

Ron White leased his land

for drilling a few years ago,

and lives right beside

an active gas well.

So where are we now?

What are we sitting in?

- We're sitting on the gas pad.

- That's your farm there?

That's my farm up there, yep.

And so it's just a few hundred yards

from your farm.

400 yards. 1200 feet.

- How do you feel about that?

- I feel good about that.

I can stand at the barn every day

and see what's making money out here.

The dairy industry isn't

too good right now.

Since the gas came along,

this is the best cow on the farm.

I make the most money on this cow and

don't have to buy any grain for her.

It's made things a lot better.

When a tractor breaks or something,

now I don't have to wonder what

I'm gonna do to be able to pay

for a new motor or something.

And we've been able to buy

some newer equipment

to make things a lot easier.

If it wasn't for the natural gas,

we wouldn't still be farming.

Milking cows twice a day,

doing what we love,

it'd be a whole different

ball game, and chances are

I probably wouldn't be

on the farm still.

Everything they told us

was gonna happen has happened.

It might not have happened

exactly or on the same timeline,

but it's happened.

Nothing's happened that's bad.

I can't say a bad thing about it.

- Come on. What about your water?

- Nothing with the water.

They tested our water

before they done anything.

They've tested our water twice after

they've done what they've done,

and the levels of anything

in the water are no different

than they were before.

My cows are drinking the water

out of our pond up there,

and out of the spring out here, and

we're drinking water out of our wells

and it's no different

than it ever was.

A lot of the fracas about fracking

started in the Delaware River Basin.

Josh Fox says he lives there

and was offered a large sum

of money to lease his property.

This started him on his

crusade to ban fracking.

I wanted to hear the story

from the farmers who lived there.

You're gonna grab a hold of

my shoulders. There you go.

Hop on like you're

getting on a horse.

- I've never been on a horse.

- Have you been on a four-wheeler?

No, never.

This your first time

on a four-wheeler too?

- Yeah.

This farm was part of the

Schweighofer family for generations.

My children are actually

the seventh generation.

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