Gasland Part II Page #4

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but, you know, something

needs to be done.

I mean, you know,

this is terrible.

FOX:
And you only got

the letter in return from EPA?

Yeah.

In terms of EPA, don't you think there's some hope there?

WOMAN:
Yeah,

I hope there is,

but the state's

fighting it worse than Encana.

Yeah.

Encana's not fighting them.

FOX:
Wait a minute.

The state is fighting EPA? Yup.

They say the Fed's

trying to run the state government,

so what they're doing

is trying to keep the EPA out of here.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Every day, John Fenton walks out into the field,

switches the direction

of the irrigation pumps--

surface water from a canal

that the dog can drink,

but that humans can't.

His own water, his groundwater,

that should be pure,

he knows is contaminated.

FENTON:
The chemical that's

in our water, it's, uh,

something that's only

been seen a couple times.

[Fox scoffs]

So--I mean, ever.

If this world worked

the way it should,

if the laws were designed

to protect the people

and to protect

the environment and not to make corporations rich,

they'd have

the chemical list in front of them.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

There's a natural filtration system in the earth--

layers and layers

of mycelium in the ground,

filtering out bacteria

that can cause illness--

but natural filtration won't

take out fracking chemicals,

and once contaminants get in

the ground, they're nearly impossible to get out.

You have a whole series

of rivers and streams and lakes,

basically, underground,

you know,

that now have all these

interconnecting faults and cracks between them.

And even if you don't

count the fractures,

you have a bunch

of well bores that are penetrating everywhere.

I don't know how you would

ever restore that

or how you would ever right

a problem in there.

The people you

talk to and you ask, "Well, can you fix this?"

Heh heh!

You get, "We don't know,"

but you read the look

on somebody's face and it says more than their words, you know?

And I would tend to think

that it's going to be this way from here on out.

FOX:
So there's going

to be some source of contamination

into the aquifer here

that's going on...

Well, it's going

to outlast me.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
In 2009,

an air-quality researcher

at Southern

Methodist University,

Dr. Al Armendariz, figured out

that the 7,700 gas wells

in the Barnett Shale

caused as much air pollution

as all of the cars and trucks

in the Dallas-Fort Worth

Metroplex.

The Texas Commission

on Environmental Quality had no idea,

the TCEQ had no idea

how many gas wells were being put in

and were in the ground

around the city of Fort Worth.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Now, there are 15,000 gas wells in the Barnett Shale.

Looking at it from Google Earth,

the pock-marked landscape looks like an alien landing zone.

Al Armendariz was appointed

by Obama to be Regional Administrator of EPA

for Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma,

Louisiana, and New Mexico.

So, do you want to talk

about Barnett Shale?

Unfortunately,

because Texas wealth is

built on this industry,

this industry controls

state government.

But they're so busy doing

the denial thing.

You can't help the alcoholic

till they're willing

to recognize that

they got a problem.

The industry here

is not willing

to recognize that

they got a problem.

They want to fight back.

They don't want to--

the idea of any kind

of governmental regulation is reprehensible to them

unless they're in control

of writing the rules that are written.

There's really absolutely

nothing new about this.

I mean, we've been doing

resource extraction at the expense

of indigenous populations

the entire history of this country.

Kind of unique to

the situation is

you've got a lot of upper

middle-class white people

with college degrees

getting ticked off 'cause they're being treated

the way third-world people

have always been treated by corporate America.

Just because you have

a nice house doesn't mean

they're not going

to drill underneath it.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Steve and Shyla Lipsky weren't born with a silver spoon.

Self-made millionaires, built

a 12,000-square-foot dream home

in Parker County, Texas.

The house was completed

September of last year.

OK, master.

Our tub, that we don't

use anymore

because it takes 200 gallons

and we can't afford it. Ha ha!

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

I never met anyone prouder of their new house

than Steve Lipsky.

And the beach.

Ha ha ha!

My whole house,

I can control everything on my phone.

Waterfall's on.

You want to see it now?

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

But just outside of their gated community,

Range Resources drilled

a horizontal well

directly underneath their house.

This is the well.

Again.

Whoa!

There you go.

FOX:
So, this is

going to make you sell this house?

Or walk away

from it or something? What are you going to--

What are your--I mean--

We don't know. Again, we simply--

Tell me what you're

going to do. Well, what--

If we have--well,

who's going to buy it? You know what?

What I'll probably do

is sell this

and then have the gas company

sue me for selling their gas.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
So much gas

venting off the headspace of their water well

that the hose never

failed to light.

Steve and Shyla Lipsky

went to the EPA for help, who immediately swept in

and issued an Imminent and

Substantial Endangerment Order against Range Resources,

saying that if the well water

continued to go into the house,

the house could explode.

You know, it's the first time

the Environmental Protection Agency

has ever blamed groundwater

contamination on natural gas drilling in the Barnett Shale.

ARMENDARIZ:
We've ordered Range

to begin an investigation

and to take all necessary steps

to stop the migration

of the natural gas

into the drinking water aquifer.

We actually moved out

of our house

because we knew

how dangerous it was,

and then went and had

the water tested.

And I do give a lot of credit

for the EPA stepping in.

Well, they tell us

they can't contaminate the water wells,

but clearly they can,

so can they contaminate the river or the lake?

Our kids swim

in that, too.

This is the well water.

Mm-hmm.

It's positive

for methlylene blue active substances.

STEVE LIPSKY:
Which is

basically detergents that they use for drilling.

There's no reason

that should be in my well.

It was positive for boron,

magnesium, and strontium.

Under the volatiles,

positive for benzene

and toluene.

This is

the water test again,

over the reporting limit

for both ethane and methane.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
Despite EPA's

enforcement action,

Steve and Shyla Lipsky

were on their own,

paying for water deliveries

a thousand dollars a month.

STEVE LIPSKY:
The laboratory

said it was off the charts.

They'd never seen

something so high,

and they were amazed that it

came out of a water well.

They said you have

to tell that homeowner that he cannot use it,

not for anything, and including

even watering the yard

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