Gasland Part II Page #3

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really wanted was permanent public water,

and someone who could

make it happen finally showed up to listen.

MAN, VOICE-OVER:
Lance Simmens.

I was special assistant

to Governor Ed Rendell

for Intergovernmental Affairs.

My primary responsibility

was to make sure

that the Governor knew, on the ground,

what was going on

in local communities.

There was something

obviously drastically wrong with this picture.

It's like, you know,

3 apples and a nail.

And I said point-blank

to the Governor,

who was sitting

within about 18 inches

from me in a meeting

one day, I said,

"We have got to get the people

of Dimock clean water.

"This is the United States

of America, and we need to have this

as a primary right for all

of our citizens."

He agreed and he asked me

what we should do about it.

And I said, "Let's connect

to a public water supply."

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
After Lance

Simmens got to the governor,

it felt like

a new day in Dimock.

Pushed by a new policy,

Department of Environmental

Protection Secretary John Hanger

releases videotapes

of Dimock wells.

We have video

of gas bubbling at those gas wells.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

The DEP revealed that Dimock wells

had inadequate cement,

cracked cement, or no cement.

The crucial part of the well

that's supposed to keep gas

from migrating

into aquifers had failed,

showing scientifically

that Cabot Oil & Gas

had contaminated

Dimock's water with methane.

[Drilling equipment clanging]

But PA DEP had the videos

for a year and a half,

so John Hanger, Secretary

of the Department, was in

the uncomfortable position of

calling his own administration's policy inadequate,

while at the same time

playing the hero.

HANGER:
We've had people

here in Pennsylvania

without safe

drinking water for close to two years.

That is totally,

totally unacceptable.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

The new policy was startling,

although it was just

common sense.

Pennsylvania would build

a water line to Dimock

from Montrose, 7 miles away--

the nearest municipal

water supply--

and the state would sue

Cabot Oil & Gas

for the cost--$12 million.

Protestors in the crowd

lifted signs of other towns in Pennsylvania

that had similar problems,

saying, "We, too, need a water line,"

insisting that the Dimock

water line be a precedent for the state.

Coming home from Dimock,

my own situation was escalating.

The only place

they hadn't managed to drill

in Pennsylvania was

the Delaware River Basin.

It's the border

with New York State,

and there are hundreds

of streams, tributaries

to form that mighty river.

15 million people get

their drinking water

out of the Delaware

River Basin--

New York City, Philadelphia,

and southern New Jersey.

A lot depends on nothing

ever happening up here.

There's an old adage:

"You can't ever step in

the same stream twice."

And from growing up

running up and down a trout stream connecting

to the Delaware River, it's

fairly obvious how that's true.

Every year, the snow melt

carves out a slightly new bank.

Every year,

the spring thaw rushes in,

takes down a few trees.

Every year, a new beach head,

a place where a swimming hole

is slightly deeper.

And, depending on the rainfall

and the weather,

there could be

a rushing current,

or a boulder revealed

by a drought that you've never seen before.

But in this case,

something besides nature had changed this.

Pro-drilling landowners

in my county

had leased over 80,000 acres.

The stream's always been

my property line, and now, just across from me,

I could wake up and see off

my front porch every day

the other side of the stream

was now leased.

If drilling began,

that side would be controlled

by the gas industry.

Now it didn't matter

that my family never signed.

I was completely surrounded,

and if they drilled,

you'd never step in

the same stream again.

The River Basin is controlled

by a 5-member body--

4 governors of the states

that border the river

and a representative

from the president--

and New York State had

been paying attention to what was going on

in Pennsylvania and

throughout the country.

The New York legislature passed

a one-year moratorium on drilling throughout New York,

and the federal government

was also taking a look.

Prompted by Maurice Hinchey,

congressman from New York,

the Federal Environmental

Protection Agency begins a two-year study

of the effects of hydraulic

fracturing on groundwater,

and EPA Administrator

Lisa Jackson declares

that if states are falling

down on the job enforcing regulations,

then the federal government

will step in.

One such failed state

was Wyoming,

and one such town was

a tiny little place called Pavillion.

My backyard, New York,

and national policy tied

to tiny little places

like Pavillion.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

EPA moved in and did

a full groundwater study,

testing for hundreds of chemicals

related to gas drilling

and the gas itself.

MAN:
This is the ultimate

detective novel.

I mean, these people are

scientists and detectives

and researchers,

and they are doing an extraordinary job,

but they are absolutely

moving mountains to get this done.

FOX, VOICE- OVER: Most people

in the west don't own their mineral rights,

so when the gas company

showed up in Pavillion, drilling over a hundred wells,

landowners had no control

over where wells were drilled

and no share of the revenue.

FENTON:
So, you know, they have

all this "Danger," you know, "No unauthorized personnel,"

but it's in the middle

of my field. I have to--

Now that we've got a big

oil field location

in the middle of the field,

we have to irrigate around it.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

On August 31, 2010,

the EPA released results

showing contamination

in 19 out of

the water wells tested.

Even though those chemicals

are in fracking fluids,

Encana--the company

doing the drilling-- denied responsibility,

and Wyoming's governor was

openly hostile towards the EPA.

Because of the gas

industry's exemption to the Safe Drinking Water Act,

they're not required to report

which chemicals they're using.

The investigation was ongoing,

but EPA told Pavillion residents

not to drink their water.

[Water running]

Just down the road, Louis Meeks,

John Fenton's neighbor.

Want a cold drink

of water? FOX:
Yeah.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

His water still smelled like turpentine.

This company come in,

right in the middle of our place,

and we didn't do

nothing to them.

It ain't no mansion,

I know it ain't no mansion, but it's home to us.

We was happy here.

We have a garden.

And we have fruit trees.

You know, there ain't much we need.

Our kids were raised here.

They rodeo'd and everything else, you know, and, um...

And this is the life

we wanted, but look at it now.

You want me to shut

my mouth?

I'm not gonna.

Do you want to see

them letters I wrote to the President? FOX: Sure.

You know, I never was

a tree hugger or anything,

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