Gasland Part II Page #13

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This is the view where you have

to ask yourself, "My God,

would I really want that

in my backyard?"

Because it's in

this guy's backyard.

He's in litigation with them.

You know, they ruined this guy.

His horses started having

health problems,

started dying, started

having miscarriages;

started having

neurological problems.

Strangely enough,

there's a bunch of neurotoxins in the air.

Funny how that works,

isn't it?

This guy had his house for sale

for years, couldn't sell it.

These people got their house

on the market; they're not going to be able to sell it.

This guy lost

a hundred thousand dollars in property value in his house.

About half of the people

that are on this road right now

just filed suit

against those companies,

so about every other

house, you could say.

I hope that these people...

get enough money

out of their suit

that they can move out of here.

They come in here and they

just got 3 pipelines going

across here, going

in all different directions,

and it's just completely

destroyed this guy's property.

Realistically could have been

a multi-millionaire.

That's just gone.

Just absolutely gone.

So, that house right there,

that 3-story house,

that's my old house.

It's been almost a week.

After we moved out, I drove back

by the house and, you know,

at that point, I knew that,

you know, it's really starting to sink in that this is real

and that...you know,

I'm out of here.

I'm not going

to live here anymore.

You don't know

what this is all about.

You don't know how it feels to

be run out of your house until you're run out of your house,

so...

TILLMAN, VOICE-OVER:

It's with mixed emotions, but it's what I have to do.

You owe it to your kids

to get them out of harm's way,

and it was

the right thing to do,

but it's not always

the easy thing to do.

Yeah, so...

WOMAN:
The scale of drilling

has gone up astronomically.

A thousand wells a year

in the Fort Worth Area.

FOX:
Your stated position was,

if the states are not doing

their job, EPA will

come in and do it? Absolutely.

Remember,

oil and gas drilling and development is

primarily, in this

country, regulated at the state level.

States like Texas,

states like Wyoming,

states like Pennsylvania

are going to have to step up.

We do have cases where

we believe we see,

many cases,

of groundwater contamination

and drinking-water

contamination that are, if not brought on

entirely by natural

gas production, were exacerbated by it;

not just methane, which is

natural gas, but other contaminants as well.

FOX:
So the whole process has

been proven to contaminate, but you can't separate

that one part of the process

from the whole rest of the process?

I can't separate

the part of the process.

That's why we're doing

a two-year study.

So, from that

perspective, we'll have something to say.

In the meantime,

though, citizens should be very vocal

with their local--

heh!--elected officials.

It'll still be up

to Congress to step forward and legislate

to make a law,

to ensure that we do have a national--

FOX:
So the real

enforcement is still-- is with the electorate?

It's always with

the--listen, in the environmental movement,

the real power

has always been with the people,

whether that's from

the first Earth Day,

when people got tired

of their air polluted

or their water catching

on fire, all the way up to today.

Inside this beltway,

you often hear people say,

"Well, we should just

get rid of the EPA.

The two don't go

together." Mm-hmm.

And I feel, as head

of the EPA, my job is to do my job:

enforce the Clean Water Act;

enforce the Clean Air Act;

enforce the Safe

Drinking Water Act.

FOX:
What can I do

to interact with this agency and say,

"These are the cases

where the states are doing nothing"?

Josh, if you have

concerns, plea--

Let me start again.

Right.

Josh--ha ha!--

if you have concerns, please bring them to us.

Remember, we have said,

and I have said, we are not walking away

from enforcing the law

while this study is going on.

We're going to ensure

that you steward the water resources.

We're going to ensure that

you stew--you take care of the air resources.

We don't want you

to pack up and leave a problem

that we or the taxpayers

are going to have to fix years from now.

[Paper rips]

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

When we were leaving the interview, we noticed

that the grand room

that we were in was actually the "Rachel Carson Great Hall."

And then I noticed that just

under the "Rachel Carson" plaque

was a fake plastic plant.

Lisa Jackson, with all

the attacks on the EPA,

had her work cut out for her.

[Truck door closes]

JOHN FENTON:
This is

a good time of year to work.

It's kind of brisk and cold

in the morning and it's usually nice and warm in the afternoon,

and this is my favorite time

of year, I think, sometimes.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
3 years since

the painstaking investigation in Pavillion, Wyoming began,

the EPA was about

to release its results,

but the burden of proof was

weighing everybody down.

FENTON:
They said,

"We've moved up the test results date.

"We're going to release it

now on the ninth

of November," which is

day after tomorrow.

To hustle around and move

that test results date up by over a month and a half?

FOX:
Mm-hmm.

There's something there.

I'm freaking out

a little bit.

I'll have to be honest

with you. I, uh...

[Sighs]

[Stammers, chuckles]

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Can you imagine waiting 3 years

just to find out

if you had a case?

John, Louis, and the rest

of the Pavillion families--

I was amazed at their endurance.

But from the moment we stepped

in the door, it was clear

the man with the Purple Heart

from Vietnam

was about to cost us

our "G" rating.

It's bullshit.

Somebody better grow

some f***ing balls

and know what they're doing.

We're living

in a cesspool out here.

When the DEQ had come out here

and they said, "Well,

"you know, we could talk

Encana, you know, to...

see if they can't sell--

buy you out,"

I said, "F*** you."

And they said, "Why?"

I said, "Do you think

I'm going to leave all my f***ing neighbors here?"

I said, "What kind of a**hole

do you think I am?"

I'm so fed up.

The sons of b*tches.

FOX:
Well, but this

could be the moment where you actually win.

I mean, it's got

to be emotionally driving you insane.

Oh, you're

goddamn right it is.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
Two days

before the EPA results would be released,

we went out to the gas fields

just south of Pavillion.

Wyoming, Colorado, and the west

play host to bands

of wild mustangs,

roaming around on the BLM

and often in conflict with

gas production in the fields.

Well, we turned around.

We're just trying to find

some wild horses.

You guys haven't

seen any, have you?

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
The Department

of the Interior rounds up wild horses by helicopter,

pens them in for

relocation, sterilization,

and sometimes they end up in

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