"The shale deposits that lie beneath 34 states harbor large reserves of natural gas." "Energy companies are digging wells across the country in hoping to revolutionize our energy consumption." "There's also growing concern over one way they drill for natural gas." "It's something called "fracking."" "The high-pressure pumping of water and chemicals deep into the earth to release oil and gas." "It's been implicated with water contamination, air pollution, health effects" "Now the debate has a new concern." "The process may trigger earthquakes." "You put a match to your water and it went up in flames?" "We are in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference." "McAleer:" "My name is Phelim McAleer." "I'm an investigative journalist and I love it." "If you don't shut that off I'm gonna take it away from you." "McAleer:" "Asking the powerful difficult questions is a great job." "McAleer:" "Mr. Gore, will you correct the record?" "McAleer:" "I wouldn't do anything else." "I was a reporter in Northern lreland during the Troubles, and later worked for the UK Sunday Times, and then The Financial Times and The Economist." "Fracking is a huge story because most people believed we were running out of fossil fuels." "But it turns out most people were wrong." "We came up with a way to tap previously inaccessible oil and gas from shale rock." "In terms of a newfound source of energy for the globe, this discovery that gas shales can be productive is probably one of the most important step increases in the amount of energy available to the world that's happened in a long, long time." "It's just absolutely huge." "The combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has allowed the world now finally to unlock huge quantities of hydrocarbons and provide cheap, abundant, reliable energy to not just millions of people, but potentially to billions of people." "McAleer:" "But despite all this good news, fracking is controversial, mostly because of this man." "Josh Fox is a journalist and filmmaker." "According to Gasland, his Oscar-nominated documentary, which also won an Emmy, fracking is a complete disaster." "It's polluting water and causing serious illnesses and deaths." "And, in the most famous scene in Gasland, people's tap water bursts into flames." "Whoa!" "Jesus Christ!" "McAleer:" "Because of these claims, fracking has been banned in many places, from Pennsylvania and New York to France and Bulgaria." "But it took me only five minutes on the Internet to discover this claim of flammable water was very questionable." "I went to a screening of Gasland in Chicago to ask Josh Fox about it." "Man:" "Excuse me, this is..." "McAleer:" "Not relevant?" "Josh Fox, the director of Gasland, knew that one of the most dramatic scenes in his documentary probably had nothing to do with fracking, but decided not to tell his audience." "So I put the exchange on YouTube." "But before you could say "flaming faucets,"" "Josh Fox got his lawyers to force YouTube to take it down." "I put it on another website, but using a bogus copyright claim, he shut me down again." "This was censorship." "What was Josh Fox afraid of?" "What was he trying to hide?" "I needed to investigate." "I decided to ask the public to help me make a film that would tell the true story about fracking." "I went on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter." "Folks with big ideas but not a lot of money connect with people willing to fund them for everything from documentary films to new technology." "Woman:" "Here's how it works:" "creators post a video, pitching an idea, and ask for donations." "Anyone who likes it can give as much money or as little as they want." "This is a film about people and it will be funded by people." "It'll be funded by small donations from you and people like you who care about the truth." "McAleer:" "The response was amazing." "People from all over the world were sending in $5.00, $10.00, $20.00." "In the end, well over 3,000 people chipped in." "Clearly, the truth about fracking is something they wanted but weren't getting." "I went straight to the place that has been painted as the ultimate environmental wasteland caused by fracking." "Man:" "In tiny Dimock, Pennsylvania, there is trouble just below the surface." "Methane in some of the water wells, enough for ignition at the tap, made famous by a scene from the documentary Gasland..." "McAleer:" "As I drove around, I could see no wasteland." "I did see beautiful farmland with rolling hills." "Were people here as unhappy about fracking as the media and Josh Fox claimed?" "There was the guy that knocked at the door, knocked on Esther's door." "Well, one day, a land man knocked at our door." "A station wagon came down the driveway that I didn't recognize, and a gentleman came out and presented us with a proposed lease for the property." "My grandfather has leased when other companies have come along in the past so we just thought, Grandpa would have done it, why can't we?" "Woman:" "More than a dozen families in Dimock, Pennsylvania have water that looks like this." "The water came out looking like coffee with milk in it." "Woman:" "Sautner says their water supply became contaminated when Cabot Oil Company started drilling and something got into their well water." "Man:" "Our son broke out in open sores down his legs from using the water here." "Our daughter had big sores of..." "eczema?" "is that what it's called?" "We shouldn't have to live like this." "We're Americans." "We knew we had iron, manganese, magnesium, aluminum, chloride, sodium, strontium, barium, three different types of uranium, two of them are weapons-grade." "And a host of other chemicals, some I can't even pronounce the names of them." "Man:" "The state agency ordered Cabot to stop drilling new wells, and to deliver fresh water to affected residents." "McAleer:" "The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection introduced a moratorium, a ban, until they could study the situation." "This meant no drilling by Cabot in a nine-mile box around Dimock." "So it just put a kibosh on everything." "We were 13 days out from having a permit where they actually could come in and start drilling, and all of a sudden they couldn't do anything." "McAleer:" "But Cabot, they put methane in the water." "They polluted the water." " No." " Allegedly." "Yeah." "The next residence here is Craig and Julie Sautner, who have all kinds of claims of all kinds of chemical contamination, weapons-grade uranium, etc., etc." "in their well." "But they've never shown any lab data to verify it." "They just claim it." "Meanwhile, every well around them is active and online." "McAleer:" "I began to suspect that Craig Sautner's claims about contaminants, including weapons-grade uranium in his water, were greatly exaggerated, or maybe even false." "McAleer:" "Have you done independent testing yourself?" "We did, way back, you know, maybe two years ago." "Two years ago we did some testing." "But that, you know, I don't think we've done any testing since that." " independent, you know." " And what did that show?" "I can't remember what that showed." "They said, they said the test results weren't that bad, but I don't know if the guy was testing the water, you know, testing for the right things." "See, there's some kind of, they gotta test 'em, test it a certain way, I forget how they said it, but it was, uh... I don't know how, I don't know how they do it." "Can I get a sample of your water to take to Ireland?" "Yeah, I'll give you a jug." "I got jugs out in the" "But the water now?" "I don't know what it looks like today." "I mean, she said it wasn't looking as bad today." "I mean, I got some, you know, it changes from day to day." "One day it will be clearer, and the next day it won't." "McAleer:" "And Craig Sautner, who claims his water is muddy brown because of fracking, was only able to produce clear water when asked in front of a camera." "Sautner:" "It does change, you know, from one day to the next." "So how can you trust a well?" "You know, all of a sudden you get, say," ""Well, that looks okay but it does have a little bit of stuff in there."" "Say, well, then that's fine to use, and then the next day it comes out looking like this." "Rayias:" "It's not due to the drilling." "There's always been methane in the water here." "We grew up on the farm, on the house down here, and, you know, my grandfather drilled a well in 1945." "The day he drilled the well, there was methane in it." "I'll show you where the well is, that was drilled in '45." " McAleer:" "What's that?" " Locey:" "That is the well." " And do you still use it?" " The only thing we use it for is washing the cars or watering the garden." "Because it is so red with iron." "It has methane too, but the methane don't hurt you." "It's the iron turns everything red." "So, what's this then?" "This is the second well that we drilled, in the 70s." " And what's in that well?" " Methane." "Iron." "Sulfur." "We still use it." "No problems." "McAleer:" "But the moratorium was not going to be the only problem for the people of Dimock." "Now they were going to be served with a massive bill for a pipeline that was supposed to solve a problem that they knew did not exist." "Man:" "The Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority voted Tuesday on a controversial project." "They decided to give $12 million to build a water pipeline between Montrose and Dimock." "It was a fiat. lt was simply, "This is what we are going to do"." "We reacted in anger." "We were citizens of this community, and you don't expect to have $12 million of the state's money committed to a project that may or may not make any sense, that hasn't been researched," "that alternatives haven't been considered for." "So we all got together and formed a group called "Enough Already"" "because we had had enough already." "It was just a group of people that got together and said, "Look, this is ridiculous." We've had enough." "Enough already." "After we had a couple of meetings, we decided to get a petition around and have everybody sign it." "We had over 1 ,500 signatures." "Man:" "The water line issue has split this tiny rural Susquehanna County town, and quite literally." " ( bleeped ) ...you!" " Rayias:" "We had to do something." "We just didn't like being trashed all the time." "Radwanski:" "Dimock is not a wasteland, it's not a gasland." "It's not a ghost town." "We're tired of getting on the Internet and reading blogs where people are just lying, saying," ""l drove into Dimock and I immediately got sick from breathing the air."" "We have been the victims of a continual deluge of completely inaccurate reporting about the condition of the water in this community." "McAleer:" "It seemed the voices of the ordinary people in Dimock who were saying their water was fine weren't being heard." "It wasn't hard to see why." "Josh Fox was getting huge support from Hollywood celebrities." "Some even came to Dimock." "Dimock, we made it, we're here, we come in love." "People are fractured." "We're all fractured over this." "McAleer:" "The locals didn't stand a chance." "There's a common misconception out there that the Dimock community is fighting the gas company." "The Dimock community loves Cabot." "There's 11 litigants and a few other stray oddballs here and there that are fighting them." "The rest of us, we want drilling to proceed as normal, and beef up our economy, and create jobs." "Radwanski:" "It's our right to make our voices known." "And apparently we did." " The water line got stopped." " The water line got stopped." "McAleer:" "It was a big win for this grassroots organization." "But their fight wasn't over." "The moratorium was still in place and the Sautners and ten other families were still suing the gas company." "As for the rest of the citizens of Dimock, well, their lives were on hold." "Was this justified?" "I'm Bryan Swistock." "I'm a water resources specialist here at Penn State in the School of Forest Resources." "I work for a cooperative extension, do education, outreach and applied research projects." "Specifically, in this case, we were doing a research project looking at the potential impacts of Marcellus shale on private drinking water supplies." "In summary, our study really did not see any clear changes in water quality due to hydraulic fracturing." "We didn't see any increases in methane in water as a result of the process." "McAleer:" "What about the flaming faucets?" "Sure." "Yeah, there can be many natural sources of methane, and it's not really anything new." "You can have methane in water for a variety of reasons." "It can be what's called biogenic methane, which is naturally occurring, just due to natural decomposition." "Maybe you're located next to a stream where there's been a lot of organic matter decomposing over time." "We had some people that told stories of lighting their faucets on fire for years now, well before any of this drilling started." "Man:" "A flaming fountain, the most unusual artesian well in the country." "Forty years ago, a well was dug in the front of the courthouse at Colfax, Louisiana." "At 600 feet, they struck natural gas." "And at 1 ,100 feet, salt water." "More or less discouraged over the matter of a drinking fountain for the courthouse square, they fixed up a small bathing pool for children at the base of the fountain, and touched off the escaping gas." "The result, especially at night, is a fiery fountain of strange beauty that has burned on and on almost half a century." "McAleer:" "There are even towns across America called Burning Springs." "That's how much gas is out there." "And George Washington and Thomas Paine lit the water on the Millstone River in New Jersey on December 15th, 1798," "150 years before fracking even started." "So, what is fracking?" "Fracking is a very efficient way of getting oil and natural gas out of the ground." "Activists make it seem like fracking is something very new that we know little about." "It's not." "It's been around since 1947 when the first frack well was drilled in Kansas." "And this is what it looks like." "A pipe is drilled into the earth more than a mile down, about the length of 200 school buses parked end to end." "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." "Man:" "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." "Tony:" "And now we just recently moved back to Pennsylvania." "Jennifer:" "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." "Tony:" "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." "McAleer:" "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." "McAleer:" "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 PNDl 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 , PNDl, 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." "McAleer:" "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?" " White:" "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." "White: 400 yards. 1200 feet." " How do you feel about that?" " l 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." "Ron:" "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." "McAleer:" "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." " l'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." "( exclaiming )" "This farm was part of the Schweighofer family for generations." "My children are actually the seventh generation." "This is where we live, and the only way that we make a living is by farming." "Out of the nursery!" "Out of the nursery!" "Marian:" "Scare 'em." "Scare 'em." "Early in 2007, the land man came to Wayne County and began knocking on doors." "I first phoned Marion and Ed Schweighofer to see what their thoughts were onto it, and we decided, yeah, that was a good idea to get together." "So then we invited other people and we had another meeting at the Damascus Township building, and had quite a crowd there." "It must have been..." "it was jam-packed." "You couldn't get another person in there, I don't think, 'cause everybody was interested by this time." "In the process we formed an organization called the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance." "It's a loose consortium of around 1100 property owners who in aggregate own, control, well over 100,000 acres of property." "One of our biggest things right from the start was we wanted it to be safe." "We wanted them to drill, but we wanted them to drill safe." "Man:" "As agriculture people and farmers, we took time to really look into this." "One of our most precious commodities is water when you're on a farm." "Everything from making a gallon of milk to growing a tomato takes water." "Rutledge:" "If the gas companies came in and destroyed our water and destroyed our land, all the money in the world wouldn't be worth it." "McAleer:" "Working together, the farmers designed their own lease, and after negotiations, signed with the gas company." "Farmers and the gas industry can coexist very well together." "It's not a new industry for farmers because the gas industry, the oil industry, arrived in Pennsylvania probably 100 years ago." "The lease that was ultimately signed was the best lease around." "It was used as a model around the country." "We also had the gas company say, look, this is something we're very happy with, we would like to give this as a model to some other groups that we're negotiating with." "As this was building up, you had Gasland come out, and as something that influences opinion, it was frankly very effective, in spite of the fact that most of the content happens to be totally wrong and has been discredited." "We will not let you poison our water!" "Marian:" "So the folks that I call the anties, they began a campaign to stop all drilling in the area, and to designate the Delaware River as the most endangered river in the United States due to fracking." "Rutledge:" "The Delaware River Basin Commission came into the picture and basically shut everything down." "This was a shock to all of us, because what it meant, everything come to a standstill." "It's just been three years of pure hell since then as far as trying to get something done." "If the moratorium on gas drilling isn't lifted, we're gonna see a long haul of hardship for this part of the country." "Way back in 1950, there was 1200 farms in the county." "Now there's about 70 in the county." "Upkeep is what kills most farms." "There becomes a time you've gotta upgrade." "Stuff has to be replaced." "And if the money's not there, you just can't do it." "If the moratorium stays in place, I probably won't last another five years here." "I'll be lucky if I last another two." "Rutledge:" "The farms are slowly going out of business." "They are getting replaced by houses." "Houses are more wells, more sewer systems, more traffic." "It's not good for the environment." "Marian:" "Our open space, our farm fields, our forests, they're actually the lungs of the river." "So when it rains and the rain falls on our open space, it's filtered, it becomes part of the aquifer, part of the water system." "So those people who want to maintain the beauty and the pristine bucolic nature of this area should in fact be supporting natural gas as a way to maintain our forests and our open space." "Coulter:" "This land is part of me." "I fight for years just trying to hold onto it." "I grew up here." "Why would I want to sell it?" "Rutledge:" "We've owned the land for 150, 175 years." "It becomes very personal to you." "These fields are here because my ancestors cleared them." "Everything on this farm was done by my ancestors." "Marian:" "There is not one farmer in this area that wants to be the one that will have to sell the family farm off." "There is also not one farmer in this area that isn't afraid that they will be the generation that cannot continue to make a living on the farm." "Canfield:" "We love this land, and we don't want anything to happen to it." "Very dear to my heart, this property." "And I think the gas company can take care of it without destroying it." "Are you ready to keep winning?" "( cheering )" "When I talked to, I think, a lot of you in Philadelphia about two months ago, and I said, if they come forward with regulations to frack the Delaware, we are going to shut them down..." "remember that?" "And the whole crowd was saying, "Shut them down!"" "Well, you shut them down!" "( cheering and screaming )" "You shut them down before they got started!" "( crowd chanting ) Thank you, Josh!" "Thank you, Josh!" "Thank you, Josh!" "Thank you, Josh!" "( crowd continuing to chant )" "McAleer:" "How could this have been done to these people?" "Thousands of farmers have had their lives ruined by a decision made in a government office hundreds of miles away in Trenton, New Jersey." "Carol Collier is the executive director of the Delaware River Basin Commission which put the moratorium in place." "She seems to have inappropriate ties to Josh Fox and the anti-fracking movement." "I've spoken to some farmers in Wayne County and, like, Sullivan County." "And they say there is a bias against the land owners, that you agreed at one stage to go to a fundraiser for Gasland and only withdrew when they pointed it out." "That was quite a while ago, but actually at that point when I was asked to be on that panel, I was not told that it was a fundraiser." "And when I did learn it was a fundraiser, I did back out." "They told me you didn't go because they embarrassed you into not going." "They obviously saw how inappropriate, even though you didn't." "Well, they don't have the whole story, because what I'm saying is, that I did not know it was a fundraiser." "When they informed me it was a fundraiser, I backed out." "It's fine that you brought this up." "It's cool. I already said "no" to that, so you know, whatever." "And do you think it's appropriate that your name is on the credits of Gasland?" "I am very surprised my name is on those credits." "I did not know it was there." "Josh never asked me." "And if you look at my track record, and what we've done here" "Well, I'm looking at your track record here." "It's quite a record, that." "For a public servant." "I fail to see how significant that is." "Thank you." "Collier:" "Next time I'll check more on background and credentials." " Do you want to see my credentials?" " Collier:" "Well..." " Man:" "Do you have a card?" " Yes." "Are you concerned about my background?" "I'm concerned about the purpose of the film." "It's to find the truth about fracking." "McAleer:" "Carol Collier, whose actions are causing hardship to thousands of families in the Delaware River Basin, clearly didn't like being asked questions." "As I was leaving, she attempted to have her lawyer confiscate our film." "I don't know what you are here for." "I'm really concerned." "Could I have your film?" "I would like the film, please." "You guys." "Thank you." "McAleer:" "This was really bad news for the farmers in the Delaware River Basin." "Josh Fox and powerful government officials robbed them of their livelihoods." "And all of this happened because of the story Josh Fox tells in the opening of his film Gasland." "Fox:" "One day I got a letter in the mail." "It was from a natural gas company." "The letter told me that my land was on top of a formation called the Marcellus shale." "I could lease my land to this company and I would receive a signing bonus of $4,750 an acre." "Having 19.5 acres, that was nearly $100,000 right there in my hand." "McAleer:" "But the story wasn't true." "Ironically, when you look at Gasland and you zoom" "They have a scene where they're zooming in on the alleged original lease, it is our lease." "It is an NWPOA lease draft that we had written, and it's blackened out, but it's ours, not one that a company offered him." "McAleer:" "Marion showed me how she first noticed that." "The farmer's lease had two minor typos on the first page, a double spacing and a missing quotation mark." "And so did the lease Josh Fox is holding up in Gasland." "So thousands ofjournalists who watched Gasland and went on to write all those stories about fracking never listened to the farmers pointing out that the documentary was misleading from the very start." "The media coverage of the gas has been so unfair, so full of half-truths." "Seems to me everything's been one-sided." "They don't tell you both sides of the story." "You get one side." "It's sort of biased on one side than the other." "It doesn't reflect the views necessarily of all the people." "They really have not represented the local people and the people who are in favor of it." "The media's constantly saying that they're destroying the water." "They would have you believe that Marcellus shale development was the scourge of the land." "They put a perception in a lot of people's heads that every well drilled is gonna pollute all the time, and that's ludicrous." "It's almost like, you know, the media and the litigants all want chemicals to appear in their water." "It's a lot of sensationalism, which just, with very little fact behind it." "There is so much stuff out there in the media that to actually go through and try to combat the misinformation and fear mongering could actually be a full-time job." "McAleer:" "I thought I should talk to John Entine, a U.S. media expert." "Entine:" "I was a network television producer for 20 years with NBC News, ABC News." "I was Tom Brokaw's producer at NBC and head of documentaries there." "At ABC I was investigative producer for 20/20 and Prime Time Live." "And the last 20 years, in a writing career that focuses on this nexus of public policy, media and NGO advocacy, is one of the unexamined areas that creates the kind of narratives, shapes the ethics of the way we talk about news issues," "including the whole shale gas crisis, if you could so to speak, and the crisis is really in media coverage, not in the danger that shale gas presents to the United States or the world." "The scary part in this debate is that the media, once the influence medias," "The New York Times, the networks, they've adopted the entertainment style of Josh Fox." "It's all about pictures that evoke this kind of anger and image." "It's like trash journalism." "There was a series of articles by The New York Times essentially saying shale gas was overblown, that there was a lot of skepticism within the industry, that its carbon footprint was far greater than even coal, a series, essentially, that if those things were true," "no reasonable-minded person could support shale gas." "It was echoed across the Internet, headlines in newspapers around the world, discussed in parliament." "Why?" "Because when The New York Times reports something, the regular media considers that it's been vetted, that it's factual." "In this case it hadn't been vetted, and when someone did look at it, the ombudsman, he was horrified." "He came out with two Sunday New York Times reports in two consecutive New York Times issues, unprecedented, hadn't been done in the history of The New York Times, literally dressing down his own paper's coverage of natural gas," "saying it was biased, manipulative, cherry-picking of the facts, getting key facts wrong." "Literally, it's the kind of thing that should have gotten the key reporters on natural gas fired." "And the only reason they weren't fired is because it literally was indicting the entire editorial department." "So it would have been literally a major housecleaning because their coverage was literally unethical." "You're not overreacting a bit?" "I mean this is just" "This is good theatrical journalism." "There's no real-world consequences." "I mean, it's fun to watch." "It may be fun to watch, may be entertaining, but there are enormous public policy consequences." "The goal of the anti-shale gas industry, and make no bones about it, that's what it is, is to stop shale gas development now and for the future." "They're not looking for better regulation." "They're not looking for more sophisticated technology to make this more efficient." "They're attempting to stop progress in its tracks." "Shale gas is a gift from God, and if we let hysteria drive regulation, if we let politicians essentially set the ground rules for what should be a science-driven enterprise, we're gonna set the American economy and the world economy back 50 years." "Paleolithic era, that's what we're going for." "McAleer:" "James Delingpole is a British journalist and author who has written extensively about energy issues." "Delingpole:" "Shale gas is the miracle of the early 21st century." "In terms of safety and environmental friendliness and economic efficiency, shale gas is about the best thing going in the world right now." "And the only reason, the only reason that shale gas is not developing faster than it is, particularly in Europe, in America it's already a great success, is because of these disingenuous objections which are being raised by the environmental movement," "funded, I would suspect, by, for example, the Russians, who are big producers of natural gas." "I was at a dinner with Prime Minister Putin recently, with a group of foreign journalists and foreign academics who are invited every year." "He doesn't eat very much." "We all eat, ask him questions, he answers the questions." "The final question was about gas, and particularly about shale gas." "And it was very interesting to see his reaction, a real illustration, I think, of the concern that shale gas is causing in Russia because it was one of the few moments in the dinner where Putin really became quite engaged, almost agitated." "And he said, if you look at photographs which have been taken from a helicopter or a plane of where this has been done in the U.S., you can see the damage." "And he essentially said, when people in Europe understand the implications of this technology and what it does to the environment, then they're not gonna want to do it." "And therefore, it's not gonna be a threat to us." "And they point to France, which has already banned it and say that's just the first one of many." "And this is somewhat amusing that suddenly" "Russia finds its conscience about the environment." "At the moment all the countries in Eastern Europe are hugely dependent on Russia." "They have very few domestic resources of their own." "And the European market is the absolutely crucial market for Gazprom because that's where it makes the bulk of its profit." "And of course Putin himself has very close ties with Gazprom." "In fact, I would say that Russia is screwed if it can't export its gas, so it really is very important for Russia that the shale gas revolution does not happen." "It is also in Russia's interest to fund those environmental groups which are committed to campaigning against fracking." "That's how it works." "I'll give you one example." "Poland is currently a net importer of gas." "Where does that gas come from?" "It comes from Russia." "The problem with relying on Russia for gas is that Russia now has a proven history of using gas as a kind of tool, or rather blunt instrument of diplomacy." "Woman:" "A natural gas crisis looming over Europe has taken a sharp turn for the worse." "A contract dispute between Russia and Ukraine has left several cities without natural gas in the dead of winter." "Without prior warning, gas supplies to some EU member states have been substantially cut." "This situation is completely unacceptable." "Buckley:" "Even in the Cold War, Russia never cut off gas supplies to Europe, but under Mr. Putin they have twice done so in recent years." "So the prospect of becoming gas producers for these countries is a very attractive one indeed." "You go to Poland, you hear a lot about it." "McAleer:" "In Warsaw, the huge Soviet block houses are a very concrete reminder of the grip" "Russia has had on Poland for centuries." "But even though their troops are no longer on Polish soil, as the main supplier of most of the country's gas," "Russia still controls the Polish people." "( beeping ) I met up with Sabina, a pensioner who fought in World War ll and survived the Cold War." "Today she spends half her pension on energy, and that money goes to Gazprom." "It's like the Soviets never left." "( speaking Polish )" "So that's your gas?" "Three-hundred and seventy-seven." "Your electricity is 266." "Your pension is 800." "So, your pension is 800." "Your electricity bill is 266." "Your gas bill is 377." "It doesn't leave much money." "How do you feel when the gas bill comes?" "( door ringing )" "McAleer:" "But anti-fracking activists like Josh Fox say economic prosperity counts for nothing if you don't have your health." "I want to tell you that I got a call from Chris Payne, the amazing director of Who Killed the Electric Car and The Revenge of the Electric Car." "And he said, "They're fracking in Baldwin Hills." "It's like over the..." "over the... bend from me." "And there's a big public park over there." "So you have a little kid, Little League, playing in noxious fumes that we experienced today, gave us quite, you know, immediate headaches and nausea from being in the park." "McAleer:" "I live in Los Angeles." "And this is the first time I've heard of people getting sick in Baldwin Hills." "After coming up to the top of Baldwin Hills Overlook and going back down, finishing my workout, I feel great." "It's wonderful, fresh." "You can really rejuvenate yourself." "It's just fresh air." "You can breathe good, you know what I mean?" "It's fresh. lt feels clean, like you're close to heaven." "The air quality is great." "Every time I come here I almost feel like I can fly just like Superman!" "McAleer:" "And Josh Fox makes the same kind of dramatic claims about Dish, Texas." "They have 10 billion cubic feet going through Dish, Texas every day with 10 pipelines that crisscross the state." "And they have benzene in the air at 55 times the public health standard." "And they have toxic emissions that float into people's homes, give them nosebleeds in the middle of the night, give them brain damage." "And Calvin Tillman's two sons are waking up in the middle of the night with nosebleeds." "Man:" "Calvin Tillman has been the mayor of Dish for three years." "He says the people in the town began to notice a strong odor and were also experiencing some side effects that he attributes to the air quality, things like nausea, headaches, runny nose, allergies, and more." "Fox:" "Calvin Tillman was so frustrated with the TCEQ's inaction that he commissioned his own air study." "The results read sort of like the back of a pamphlet that you don't want to pick up at the American Cancer Society." "Study found, and I quote, "Amazing and very high levels of known and suspected human carcinogens and neurotoxins."" "McAleer:" "But were these claims true?" "The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is the second largest environmental agency in the world behind the EPA." "We've been to Dish l believe over 120 times on individual sampling trips or monitoring trips and collected over 50 VOC canisters, which we ran through a gas chromatograph." "And I'm happy to say that of all of those samples that we've conducted and collected and analyzed, none of those exceeded the short-term concentration levels that would cause concern." "McAleer:" "After the air quality was given the all-clear, the health department sampled blood, urine, and drinking water in the area and found no problems caused by fracking." "So it's comforting to see we have a great deal of data from Dish and from the Barnett shale region that shows that indeed our regulations are protective, especially when you consider that it's such a concentrated production field in that area." "McAleer:" "But some people still claim that fracking contaminated their water and made them sick, like Stephen Lipsky from Parker County, Texas." "He sued for Range Resources for $6.5 million." "Lipsky teamed up with Alisa Rich of Wolf Eagle Environmental Engineers to produce a video of flaming water and a set of test results supporting his case against the gas company." "But the video was faked." "They intentionally pumped gas into the water line in order to set it on fire." "The judge ruled that Stephen Lipsky and Alisa Rich had conspired to produce false evidence, and Alisa Rich's claims that she was an engineer and had a PhD were also fraudulent." "Man:" "In line 13 it says, "l have a PhD in air pollution control design."" " Do you see that?" " l do, sir." "That was just not a true statement at the time you made that, was it?" "That was a misstatement." " You are not an engineer, are you?" " No, sir, I am not." " You're not a geologist?" " No, sir." "You're not a geophysicist?" "No, I would not consider myself a geophysicist." "You're not a petroleum engineer?" "I am not a petroleum engineer." "No." " You're not a toxicologist?" " No, sir." "You're not a hydrogeologist?" "No." "No, I am not a hydrogeologist, technically." "We deal a lot in hydrology, just like we deal a lot in geology, but I would not call myself a hydrogeologist." "McAleer:" "This wasn't the first time I'd come across Alisa Rich." "She was also hired by Calvin Tillman to provide the damning but completely inaccurate reports on the air and water quality in Dish, Texas." "Despite faking her qualifications, and a judge finding that she was part of a fraudulent conspiracy," "Josh Fox still relies heavily on Alisa Rich in his campaign against fracking." "But what about the chemicals that are used in fracking?" "I needed to speak to an expert." "So I went to the University of California, Berkeley." "Dr. Bruce Ames is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology." "Because of his research on the causes of cancer," "Dr. Ames has won many awards, including the National Medal of Science, the Japan Prize, and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement." "He is one of the most cited scientists in the world." "This is Gasland, the film by Josh Fox, and this is what he says about chemicals and fracking and public health, I suppose." "( Fox on video ) ln order to frack, you need some fracking fluid, a mix of over 596 chemicals, from the unpronounceable to the unknown to the too well-known." "The brew is full of corrosion inhibitors, gellants, drilling additives, biocides, shale control inhibitors, liquid breaker aids, viscosifiers, liquid gel concentrates." "On the side of that frack fluid truck it should say, "Just add water."" "Well, you could say that about a cup of coffee with more justification." "I mean, it doesn't tell you much." "What would you say to people who saw Gasland and are scared by that figure of over 500 chemicals and the scary names of the chemicals?" "Yeah, but it's only scary if you've been... don't know anything." "If I gave you all the long names of chemicals in cabbage that give cancer to rats in high levels, you could get scared." "But there's really no danger in eating cabbage." "But at least there's no carcinogens in broccoli." "Oh, yeah, there are carcinogens in broccoli." " No!" " Yeah." " No." " Broccoli's good for you, but there are carcinogens in it." "See, they define carcinogen as giving the maximum tolerated dose to a mouse or a rat, and feeding it every day for a lifetime." "And half the chemicals they've ever tested, whether it's natural or synthetic, no difference, give cancer to these animals at this huge dose, but it doesn't mean it's gonna give cancer at a low dose." "And it's all a high-dose artifact." "What do you mean, "high-dose artifact"?" "What does that mean?" "It means it's the high dose that's causing it, and they're scaring you about a low dose." "But scare stories sell newspapers." "The media loves scare stories." "Every time I see a story about some new scare that's gonna give cancer to people, it's always completely implausible." "It's a minor hypothetical risk at best." "If people say fracking's causing cancer, then they don't know what they're talking about." "McAleer:" "Josh Fox claims that fracking in Texas has caused a spike in breast cancer." "Fox:" "In Texas, as throughout the United States, cancer rates fell, except in one place, in the Barnett shale." "McAleer:" "But the Associated Press checked that claim with several cancer experts and found it to be false." "Professor Simon Lee from the University of Texas," "David Riser, an epidemiologist with the Texas Cancer Registry, and Susan G. Komen For The Cure, all said there was no spike in cancer in the Barnett shale." "Scaring American families with untrue claims about breast cancer seemed unethical journalism at best." "After I retired, I started to spend essentially full-time in Damascus, Pennsylvania." "I'm currently facing a cancer situation." "Okay, that was one of the reasons why I'm in New York right now." "Because I'm scheduled for surgery in two weeks." "It has nothing to do with drinking the water." "It has nothing to do with the air I breathe." "I could be out there right now carrying a sign saying," ""l've got cancer. I'm fighting against this." "You caused it." "Don't let this happen to you."" "I couldn't look at myself in the mirror in the morning 'cause that's nonsense." "But it would be very effective as some political theater." "McAleer:" "The scare du jour from anti-fracking activists is that fracking causes dangerous earthquakes." "I spoke to Professor Ernest Majer in the Department of Earth Sciences at Berkeley." "He has spent a career analyzing the role humans play in causing earthquakes." "He says if you're scared about seismic activity, fracking should be the least of your worries." "If I had a house where l had every type of energy potential, a river so I could dam up and make a hydroelectric project, geothermal, hot rock, on the other side of the house, and an oil/gas reservoir on the other side," "I would probably, from a just strict risk of induced seismicity, I would choose the oil and gas project, of course, because it has the lowest potential for induced seismicity to cause any hazard or any risk" "associated with the injection of fluid into the ground." "Hydrofracture is very low-risk." "Very low hazard too." "McAleer:" "Professor Majer says if energy production that causes earthquakes needs to be banned, then geothermal energy should be first on the list." "He has been closely studying the Geysers geothermal plant" " in Northern California." " Majer:" "In terms of the Geysers, which is north of San Francisco, about 70 miles, it's the world's largest geothermal production area." "And there has been seismicity there." "There has been quite a bit of seismicity there." "We're actively recording there with a very dense array." "We get about 100 magnitude ones per day, up to 10 magnitude twos per week, and at least two or three magnitude threes per month." "And several magnitude fours per year." "McAleer:" "It's interesting that while Josh Fox and anti-fracking activists are trying to make an issue about fracking and earthquakes, they are silent about the hundreds of earthquakes caused every month by geothermal energy." "In Gasland, Josh Fox asks, why can't we power the world with solar panels?" "But you need huge amounts of rare earth metals to make one solar panel." "95 % of these minerals are mined in China." "Woman:" "It doesn't look very green." "Rare earth processing in China is a messy, dangerous, polluting business." "It uses toxic chemicals, acids, sulfates, ammonia." "The workers have little or no protection." "Green campaigners love wind turbines, but the permanent magnets used to manufacture a three-megawatt turbine, contain some two tons of rare earth." "McAleer:" "And wind turbines." "They are massive, 24/7, ruthless bird-killing machines." "They don't care if the birds are endangered or not." "The problem with these people that continually promote renewable energy is I think none of them own a calculator." "Let me run you through the numbers." "If you just look at the growth in electricity demand from 1985 through 2011 , on average, electricity demand globally increased by 450 terawatt hours." "That's 450 trillion watt hours." "If you just wanted to supply the incremental demand of that 450 terawatt hours per year, you would have to cover a land area of about 100 square miles every day, with nothing but wind turbines." "McAleer:" "I was back on the road when I heard some breaking news about Dimock, Pennsylvania." "The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection had tested the water in Dimock, including the well of Craig and Julie Sautner." "Man:" "Pennsylvania's environmental agency tells CBS news, "There is no evidence in Pennsylvania of fracking ever having contaminated drinking water."" "McAleer:" "However, that wasn't good enough for Craig and Julie Sautner." "They insisted the federal Environmental Protection Agency investigate." "The EPA agreed, and started a comprehensive testing of Dimock's water wells." "Woman:" "Federal officials have released a fourth round of results from well-water testing in the Dimock area." "The Environmental Protection Agency says it did not find any alarming results from 12 more wells it tested earlier this year." "McAleer:" "So 1500 people in Dimock said their water was fine." "Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection confirmed this." "And now the EPA has announced there's nothing wrong with the water." "I decided to ask the Sautners if they would now drop their lawsuit." "I was half a mile away from the Sautners' house." "I was on the phone, calling them for an interview when Julie Sautner saw me and drove up." " Woman:" "That's her." " McAleer:" "That's her." "McAleer:" "Well, how's it going?" "We just wanted to ask you a quick few questions." "The people are very upset you saying the water's dirty." "Do you agree the water is dirty?" "But the EPA says the water is clean now." "They said there's no contamination in the water." "is there contamination in your water?" "What did the EPA say about your water?" "I just want to find the truth." "Why would we be sued?" "What are we lying about?" "Why do you not want to be filmed?" "You've given hundreds of interviews to people." "But I want to know what the EPA have said about your well." "Will you give me the results of your well?" "Why not?" "I'm just asking you the truth." "You're involved in a very public lawsuit." "You've given interviews." "You've said your well is contaminated." "The EPA has said-- l'll drink your water now." "Would you bring it down?" "You've got this brown water." "Can we go get some of your brown water?" "is that brown water just a prop?" "is your water actually brown at the moment?" "Let's go to the well now." "Let's go to the well now and get" "With your permission." "Please do." "You're armed?" "Well, I'm not getting involved now." "What are you reaching for there now?" "Oh, okay." "Well, I'm not harassing you in any way." "You stopped-- l was standing here." "You stopped to talk to me." "That's, what's" "Are you declining an interview?" "Julie?" "Are you declining to show me the results?" "I just want to get that officially." "Are you declining to show me the results?" "( siren sounding )" " McAleer:" "How's it going?" " Put your hands where l can see." "What's going on?" " McAleer:" "We're making a documentary." " Okay." " Do you have any id on you?" " McAleer:" "Yeah." "Sure." "Were you on her property?" "No, I was on the public road there on a phone and she pulled up." "I actually was standing on the road and she pulled up and we had this conversation while she was in her car." "All right." "Did you say you were gonna take water from her house without her permission or something?" "No, I asked her to provide me with water." "Oh, you just asked her if she would voluntarily provide you with water?" " Yes." " Okay, all right." "So you never said anything about, I'm gonna come on your property and take your water when you're gone or something like that?" " Absolutely not." " Okay." "Okay, all right." "Okay, I'm just gonna" " Did she say that?" " Yes." "So that's why I'm here." "McAleer:" "What was Julie Sautner trying to hide?" "Why would she not release the findings of the EPA's water testing?" "A source told me that three senior EPA officials had given her the results and that the meeting was filmed." "Through a Freedom of information request, I managed to get hold of the tape." "It showed the EPA telling the Sautners that their water was not contaminated." "Their reaction to this good news was rather strange." "Oh, my God, I just can't believe you people!" "She's discussed us with everybody." "She's got a problem." " That's-- lookit" " No, I'm" " Right here" " Sit down-- l'm not sitting anywhere." "I'm done with this. I am." " Right here." " You can finish this." "I'm done. I'm getting myself too upset for this shit!" "No, this is bullcrap, man!" "I'm sick and tired of this!" "What happened to you people?" "Really?" " Listen" " You guys aren't the same as you were two months ago, three months ago." "You think I made this stuff up?" "This is-- this is-- this-- you're out of here?" "Yeah. I'm not gonna-- this is getting-- lf you want to sit down and talk rationally to me" "How can I talk rationally if you guys won't listen to anything we say?" " l'm listening to you" " You're saying my water's fine!" "And we can drink it!" "We're telling you we tested your water." "At this point in time we found no contaminants in it." "McAleer:" "Campaigns by people like the Sautners bring bans and moratoriums on fracking around the world." "These bans have consequences, because energy really matters." "We all love energy, even if we don't realize we do." "Just think about all the things you love." "Your friends, lazy afternoons together, experimenting with the latest recipe, new ideas, solving the world's problems, capturing moments, making your voices heard." "We might not realize it, but we'd really hate not having energy." "We'd die not having it." "We can see the places in the world with lots of cheap energy." "They're the places with their lights on." "In these countries, people live long and live well." "These lights mean millions of people get to follow their dreams." "Somewhere behind one of these lights, a child is studying hard, and will grow up to invent the next medical miracle." "Somewhere else there's a Steve Jobs creating the things we can't even imagine right now." "And somewhere else there's a kid who will one day write and make a movie like Avatar that nearly the whole world will watch and enjoy." "But it's not like this everywhere." "In the dark places, energy is scarce, and life is cruel and life is short." "People who live there can only dream of what life could be like." "But their dreams will never come true." "Energy has allowed my friend Bart to save his childhood friend's life." "Bart donated his kidney to Linc in an operation that used outrageous amounts of electricity." "That electricity, that energy, and Bart's astonishing generosity, saved Linc from certain death and gave Claire and Lucy back their father and Laurie back her husband." "Energy matters." "It really matters." "It makes everything better." "It's not at all ordinary." "We take it for granted because we have never known life without it." "We really shouldn't." "This has been quite a journey." "I discovered a lot." "Josh Fox was wrong about fracking." "It didn't make water flammable." "It's not exempt from environmental regulations." "It doesn't contaminate water." "Fracking is not causing dangerous earthquakes, and it's not causing widespread illness and death." "All those wrongs affected the lives of a lot of ordinary people." "I thought it was time to put some questions to Josh Fox." "( phone ringing )" " Fox:" "Hello?" " Hi, is that Josh?" " Yes." " Hi, Josh, this is" "Phelim McAleer, the director of FrackNation documentary." "Hello?" "( line ringing )" "Hey, this is Josh Fox." "Please leave me a message." "Thanks very much." "Bye." "Hi, Josh, this is Phelim McAleer, the director of FrackNation." "I have just tried to call you there and I'm not sure what happened." "I think maybe you hung up on me, but I really want to do an interview with you for FrackNation." "I've uncovered some things that... I left a number of messages." "I got no response." "He seemed to want to avoid my questions." "But then I heard Josh Fox was appearing at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles." "This was going to be my chance to get some answers." "Josh, Phelim McAleer." "You hung up on me the other day." "There's a lot of questions I've come across." "I'm just looking for an interview." "You don't want to answer questions?" "( indistinct chatter )" "McAleer:" "The farmers of Pennsylvania would like to also ask you some questions." "As a journalist, would you not be interested in answering a few questions?" "McAleer:" "Hey, what are you doing?" "What are you doing?" "I'm gonna ask you to please leave the property." "You are asked to leave." "You are asked to leave." "Josh, what about the water in Dimock?" "is the water clean in Dimock?" "There's blood." "She stole it." "She stole the phone from my hand." "Like she just-- l had to fight her to get my phone back." "McAleer:" "She did that to you?" "Yeah, she snatched the phone from my hand." "I had to fight her to get my phone back." "McAleer:" "She took it from you?" "Yeah, because I was filming a public event in Hammer Museum." "And that's the wound!" "So there is, you know, there will be blood!" " There will be blood." " Yeah."