Gasland Part II

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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:

We have a supply of natural gas

that can last America

nearly 100 years...

[APPLAUSE]

and my administration will take

every possible action

to safely develop this energy.

The development of natural gas

will create jobs

and power trucks and factories

that are cleaner and cheaper,

where we develop a hundred-year

supply of natural gas

that's right beneath our feet.

BILL CLINTON:
The boom

in oil and gas production

has driven oil imports

to a near-20-year low

and natural gas production

to an all-time high.

HILARY CLINTON:

The United States will promote the use of shale gas.

Now I know that, in some places,

is controversial.

PAUL RYAN:
With 21st-century

drilling technology,

you can get it out of the ground

in a very safe and secure way.

MITT ROMNEY:

I don't recall hearing about water being on fire.

We will have

North American energy.

We're going to be independent.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, God bless you,

and God bless

the United States of America.

MAN, VOICE-OVER:
Hi.

My name is Josh Fox.

This is my house.

It's in the middle of the woods,

tucked away on a dirt road

in a small town next

to the Delaware River

called Milanville, Pennsylvania.

Just past my backyard,

there's a stream

that feeds the Delaware.

It's been 5 years

since the first proposal

to drill thousands of gas wells

in the Delaware River Basin

came knocking at my door.

Every day you wake up with it--

the fate of my backyard,

the watershed for millions

of people--

up in the air.

Sometimes,

you can't figure out

what's going on

in your own backyard

without figuring out all

the places around the world

that your backyard's

connected to.

And, as we know, in sequels,

the Empire strikes back.

So let's start where

we left off...

when the tide came in.

It was hard to believe my eyes.

As far as I could see,

the surface of the Gulf,

streaked with oil like ghosts

along the surface.

Nothing could really

prepare you.

We hadn't seen pictures

like this on the news.

It had been widely reported

that journalists' flights

were restricted

to 3,000 feet and above.

Journalists would call up

the FAA to clear their flights,

and BP would answer the phone.

And I don't know why.

Maybe because it was a Sunday.

Maybe because it was the Fourth

of July, and everybody was off.

But somehow, we got clearance to

fly at any altitude we wanted,

so this is what

it really looked like.

Down on the ground,

we weren't so lucky--

limited access to beaches--

but we weren't the only ones

hitting roadblocks.

I was getting

pretty good at this.

You don't really have time

to sit back

and say, "Why the hell

is this happening?"

Why is BP...

Are they in the back pocket?

They got a cozy deal?

Is their lobbyist in Washington

controlling this?

But, um, something stinks.

We're fighting harder with

the Coast Guard and BP

than we're fighting the oil.

I don't even want to start

to imagine things that--

Why would this be?

Why would they be protected?

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
We found out

that BP was spraying chemical dispersants

on surfaces of the Gulf

in huge volumes.

A chemical that had been

banned in Britain

actually makes the oil

more toxic

and sinks it out of sight.

They weren't solving

the crisis, just hiding it.

It's going to be ugly

if we quit spraying dispersant.

It's going to be black oil

all over the surface.

But this monster that continues

to grow every day,

at least it's not invisible.

Right now, they're making it

invisible, impossible to fight.

For every decision they've made

throughout the catastrophe,

there's been huge negative

impacts, and we--

the people of Louisiana,

Mississippi,

Alabama, and Florida--

are going to have to deal

with those negative impacts

for a very, very long time.

FOX:
Years? Decades?

SUBRA:
Decades,

decades. Generations.

And that's what is

so devastating

to the fishing

communities.

FOX:
So all

the dispersant does is it makes the oil sink?

It makes it sink,

and it spreads it

throughout

the water column and into the sediment.

And most of the water

column and the sediment

have been damaged

or destroyed

as far as aquatic

organisms are concerned

because it's toxic.

We lost the Gulf

of Mexico

as far as an ecosystem,

as a productive

ecosystem.

We didn't lose

the Gulf of Mexico

as a source

of fuel, fossil fuel.

And that drilling

and production will continue,

even though

the ecosystem has been destroyed.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

What I was learning in the Gulf

was that no matter

how huge the catastrophe was,

what really mattered was

who was telling the story.

Let's go catch the sunset,

guys, then we'll come back in and check.

You know, if I get sick

in 20 years, so be it,

but my kids' bodies

are still developing.

They say, "Oh, well,

everything's fine,

"but stay inside your house

and keep your doors closed

and your air conditioner

on recirculation."

You know, I was taught

not to throw so much as a Coke can in the Bayou.

This is our home.

This is where we eat,

sleep, live.

This is us. We're Bayou people.

People don't understand

something. This isn't just about an income.

This is about an entire way

of life in its entirety.

We'll go out here and catch

150 pounds of shrimp,

or go craw fishing

in the ditches or whatever,

a couple of hundred

pounds of craw fish.

5 or 6 families will get

together, no alcohol,

boil seafood, barbecue whatever,

and we have family time.

You know, without that there,

I mean, yeah,

we could cook other food,

but what about going in the bayou

and going in the pirogue with

the kids, with no video games,

no TV, no nothing?

One on one, some people go

into the mountains behind their house,

and they become one

with nature.

That's the bayou for us.

If it's not there, what's

the point of being here?

We're going to have

a dead fishery, contaminated land,

a bag full of bills,

and a court date when this--

when the federal government

tells BP that their cleanup has been completed.

Why stay?

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

That's when it hit me

how much of this whole culture

was going to have to move.

When I got home

from the Gulf, there was a new surprise neighbor.

The Delaware River

Basin Commission

was debating a new plan

to open up the river basin

to 18,000 gas wells.

The Commission had approved

15 exploratory wells,

and one was about a mile

from my house.

Wait. Stop.

I really want to start

at the middle,

but I got to start

at the beginning.

My parents built our house

in the Upper Delaware

in the same year

I was born, 1972.

It was my father's dream,

and my mom filled it with furniture.

He told my mother, "I want

to build a house of love."

I want to build a house

of love for you."

He ended up building it

out of a $2.00 diagram

out of "Popular Mechanics."

For my father--

a Holocaust survivor born

in Russia, fleeing the Nazis;

and for my mother, the child

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