PICTURE

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Aston:

Les Stone (Photojournalist)

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Still Photos of flares in Pensylvania

Shot of River.

Main title:

Fractured Earth: Fractured Lives

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Aston:

Doug McLinko,

Bradford County Commissioner, Towanda, Pennsylvania

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Aston:

Dr Tony Ingraffea,

Professor of Engineering, Cornell University

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Aston:

Vera Scroggins,

Environmental Activist,

Pennsylvania

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Fishing in the River

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Aston:

Sherry Leap,

Water Pollution Biologist,

Department of Environmental Protection, Pennsylvania

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Graphic of DEP letters on screen

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Aston:

Tammy Manning, Franklin Forks, Pennsylvania

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Tammy shows her water test reports.

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Aston:

Jim & Suzanne Splain,

Rome, Pennsylvania

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Jim shows well venting footage on his film.

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Jim walks out of his house.

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Aston:

Matthew Manning

Franklin Forks, Pennsylvania

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Les fixes camera & leaves

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Aston:

Ray Kemble,

Dimock, Pennsylvania

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Aston:

Brandy Rail,

Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania

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Aston:

Raymond Mayerzak, Dimock, Pennsylvania

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Aston:

Deborah Barr, Attorney at Law, Towanda, Pennsylvania

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Still photos

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Aston:

Carol French,

Farmer, Bradford County, Pennsylvania

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Aston:

Glenn Felter,

Farmer, Bradford County, Pennsylvania

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Aston:

Alex Lotorto,

Shale Gas Coordinator,

Energy Justice Network.

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00.27.06.00

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Aston:

The EPA’s 2012 determination that Dimock’s water was safe to drink was called into question by a leaked EPA report in 2013 that stated that “significant damage” was done to drinking water aquifers in Pennsylvania, as reported in the Washington Post and the LA Times.

00.27.58.00

Aston:

In May 2015 a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA concluded that the “natural gas and drilling compounds” had been driven along underground fractures into “the acquifer used as a potable water source”.

[Credits]

 AUDIO

Les Stone (OOV)

I came to the story of Fracking very late actually.

By the time I realised that fracking was a big deal they had already leased all the land within 20 miles around me.

Les Stone

This is New York State, right now we have a ban in New York State against Fracking. But who knows how long that’s going to last, so I came to this story realising that it had totally surrounded me and all of New York State where Marcellus Shale is.

So I decided after seeing some pictures and hearing these stories that I would go to Pennsylvania and take a look at what was going on. That’s about five years ago.

So I went to Pennsylvania and as soon as you get to the border of Pennsylvania you can see the flares in the mountains.

Les Stone OOV

So I crossed the border and I went directly to one of those flares at dusk and started shooting pictures. They were the first pictures I ever shot and I was floored. I could not believe that this was actually going on.

Music

Voiceover

The North Eastern United States is rich in natural gas.

The gas is trapped in a geological formation that is known as the Marcellus shale, which runs across several states and over the border between Pennsylvania and New York.

Natural gas has been recovered from close to 10,000 wells in Pennsylvania alone. The controversial process of pumping a high pressure mix of water, chemicals and sand into the underground rock to release the gas, is known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

But with a drop in the global price of oil, shale gas production has slowed, leaving some to wonder about the real cost of fracking.

Doug McLinko (oov)

Natural gas has been a complete blessing to our county.

We have seen more prosperity than we ever have, we have added two million dollars, two hundred million dollars excuse me, of market value on to our county in just a couple of years.

We’ve seen farms preserved for generations. There’s never been a government programme that has ever preserved family farms more then natural gas.

Dr Tony Ingraffea

All the risks associated with oil & gas in general, which are not inconsequential, get magnified because of the scale of this activity.

Vera Scroggins

My first concerns was this is industrialization that’s coming in here. This is a rural area, this is a farming community – and low population – and then when I learned more about it, then I am concerned about the pollution. With in industrialisation there is usually pollution, contamination.

Voiceover

It’s opening day of the fishing season in Salt Springs State Park.

Locals say that naturally occurring methane, bubbles up through the water and that this venting gas was first set alight in 1795, proof, shale gas supporters say, that fracking is not the cause of any reported water contamination.

Doug McLinko

Well there’s never been one fresh water supply in the history of EPA or DEP in the United States ever been contaminated from Hydrofracturing, it’s the very smallest part of drilling shale energy that there is.

Sherry Leap

We have a few lakes that we call our water quality network lakes.

We’ve monitored them for five years in a row and we are going to look and see if there is anything we can see in the water quality data that would indicate anything changing over five years. I don’t think that there is anything that stands out yet.

Voiceover

While Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has no data to suggest that freshwater lakes have been contaminated in the region, there is growing evidence that this may not be the case for too much longer.

The DEP’s own website lists 250 reports of private water supplies such as ground water wells have been impacted by oil and gas activities, activities that include fracking.

Voiceover

The Mannings live with their grandchildren a few miles downriver from the Salt Spring State Park, and believe that shale gas production has polluted their water well.

Tammy Manning

This is a map of our area, this is where we are. This is the DePue well which is the closet well in that direction, its over 7000ft from our home, this is the Hollenbeck, this direction, up this road, 4000ft and this is the Webster which is beyond the Hollenbeck, each of them the well casing failure is in red. Each of those had a well casing failure.

Voiceover

Campaigners argue that these gas well casing failures are one of the main causes of water supply contamination.

Tammy Manning

Methane levels 380,900 ugs/litre, which is 38.9mg/litre, ethane 7.16

We have high levels of metals we have high levels of gases, its all documented and DEP still can’t prove that it’s the gas company at this time. We have a map that shows that they are fracking on all sides of us and we have well casing failures on all sides of us and still they won’t say that it is the gas company that caused it.

We have no doubt that this is happening all over the place. We have met many people from around the country who have been in the same situation.

Voiceover

One such family is the Splains.

Fearful of the impact of the gas well just a few hundred feet from their home, the Splains now survive on bottled water.

Jim Splain (oov)

Since we have had this problem with the well in the back we have done some research and we found our that all the problems associated with fracking …

Jim Splain

..most of those chemicals are undetectable by the human. You can’t smell them, you can’t see them, you can’t taste them. But when everyone in the family is sick at the same time, for no reason, frequently, it tells me that there’s a problem, but how do you measure that?

This well may be an exception to the rule however it’s a potential and you’re never informed about what can happen. They drilled the first well and they fracked it here it was fine.

The second well they drilled and something happened and as a result they were unable to contain the amount of pressure in that well and they were venting it off into the air, up to four times a day

Jim Splain (walking to computer)

This is a video of the venting that they did on the well. At first it sounded like a jet engine, but they put a baffle on because there were a lot of complaints and now it’s a lot quieter but this is a video of what it sounded like. God knows what is coming out of there.

Jim Splain (oov)

They vented this like four times a day and for about a year and half until they fixed it.

Jim Splain

We definitely know there’s gas coming out, and there’s got to be chemicals. What makes that steam? I know that probably one percent of that steam is probably bad for me and that’s good enough.

Jim Splain

This is the well over here that I did the video from. They flare it mostly at night for the longest amount of time, but as you can see it is very close to the house. And I know of people round here that get sick from this, of course they won’t say much.

And here’s a truck now.

That’s a cattle truck though, kind of different. The trucks that come through here, there’s at least three. Every minute, minute and a half and they run in threes and they’re very loud, you know we’re pretty close to the road. We’re used to this being a very quiet highway, but not any more.

Jim Splain (oov)

If I had my choice it wouldn’t be here at all. But you don’t get a choice.

Jim Splain.

We’re trying to move away. We’re not getting a dime from this and the reason why I’m even talking to you it try to keep others from being in this situation. Don’t get these in your back yard.

Voiceover

Like the Splains, the Mannings now cannot drink their well water and have to rely on trucking in water from elsewhere.

Matthew Manning.

This is our water supply, we have an 1100 gallon tank in side here that the gas company was filling for us for roughly a year and a half, 19 months they filled it for us.

Matthew Manning (oov)

When the DEP determined that they could prove it was the gas company …

Matthew Manning

…even though there’s a lot of documentation and proof of it, they still said that it wasn’t but the gas company quit bringing us water and we have to go and get it ourselves now. And we have to pay for it ourselves.

About once a week we have to go and get a water truck, it holds 600 gallons at a time and we have a hydrant up in Montrose, it’s municipal water, we fill the truck we come back, we pump it into our tank. But 1100 gallons with a family of 5 or 6 doesn’t go very far.

Matthew Manning

It divides the communities up. There’s a lot of people in this community because we’ve spoken out about our gas and our water supply that people have never met me a day in my life, they hate me because of it. And they don’t even know me.

Vera Scroggins

A lot of people keep quiet, they’re afraid to speak. I feel like, its ermm, our civil rights and even our rights to speak out have been so curtailed and restricted people are afraid to speak, they’re afraid of offending this company, of offending their neighbours who want this and who are hoping for a lot of money.

Voiceover

One person who is not afraid to speak out is Ray Kemble from Dimock, Pennsylvania. Ray has become quite a celebrity in the anti-fracking campaign.

Ray Kemble

Water truck!

Voiceover

Ray has been at the centre of a very public row with Cabot Oil and Gas.

Les Stone

Ray Kemble has had trouble with a gas well drilled across from his property for past 7-8 years. This well has polluted his water completely.

Les Stone (actuality on phone)

We’re going to get there as soon as possible. I need your address.

Les Stone

Now instead of him selling out to the company which they wanted him to do, he decided to fight, now Ray is just a normal, every-day guy, he’s a biker, and a truck driver. He’s not someone who is an environmentalist…he never started out as and environ…he wouldn’t even know what the word meant.

But now he’s fighting that company and he’s pissed, he’s really angry..

Les Stone (oov)

…and you will see his water and this is not fake. The companies will tell you that Ray is faking his water. The water that comes out of his well is poisonous that you can’t even stand and breathe it. It’ll make you gag, in fact it’ll probably make you throw up. It’s full of fracking chemicals.

Ray Kemble

To make a long story short.. they started drilling in 2008. 2009, beginning of 10 , everyone started seeing al their water going bad in their houses, it started up on the top of Carter road and all the neighbours started talking. And that’s when DEP starting coming in and doing all the water testing.

Voiceover

Ray used to work as a truck driver for the gas industry but now runs a small car repair garage from his home.

Brandy Rail

We leased our land too. There’s a gas pad, they drilled wells. We don’t have water issues or water worries. None of our neighbours do.

Brandy Rail to Ray (actuality – to Ray)

You don’t realise how valuable a resource water is until there’s a problem with it and then it’s like your life line is affected.

Brandy Rail

I feel bad for the people out here. The water has been tested and it is for sure contaminated from the fracking process with fracking chemicals, its public knowledge.

Voiceover

In public statements Cabot refutes the allegations that drinking water supplies in the area are contaminated with methane gas or other chemicals from fracking. But Ray Kemble remains unconvinced.

Ray Kemble

Industry is denial. They’ll spend 100 million dollars in denial instead of spending 50 million dollars to correct it. Because if they admit they did it. C’mon. Imagine if they actually admitted they polluted us. The law suits would be…you know you would not be able to put a hole anywhere in the country or the world.

Ray Kemble (oov)

Industry loves to turn around and go “its naturally occurring”. Yeah it is naturally occurring, 8000ft underground. Until you drill the hole through that and through our water aquifers, and you brought it the surface, we didn’t have it up here. Yeah naturally occurring 8000ft under us.

Voiceover

It’s April and the winter snow has finally melted. But for Raymond Mayerzak the onset of spring brought an unwelcome surprise.

Raymond Mayerzak

We went through the winter this winter, when the ice came off the lake, I had a pile of fish 10 feet, at least 10 feet off the shore, with just fish.

This all goes back to last year. Last year we had a water truck turn over on its side up here.

Raymond Mayerzak (oov)

The truck had to be within 5 feet of the lake.

Voiceover

According to Raymond, the truck was carrying liquids from a nearby gas well fracking operation.

Raymond Mayerzak

When I started finding the dead fish in the pond I put them in my Kubota’s tractor bucket and brought three loads of fish up here and this is where I dumped them to get them away from the hose so I didn’t have to smell them.

Raymond Mayerzak (oov)

What ever was in that truck, laid in that lake all…

Raymond Mayerzak

….All summer long and that’s my summation and then when the ice came it was sealed underneath the ice and what ever it was killed the fish.

Voiceover

The DEP’s Water Pollution Biologist Sherry Leap has come to test the lake, two weeks after the dead fish were discovered.

Sherry Leap

I would think that there was no oxygen under the ice, ‘cause if there were fracking fluid in here the conductivity would not read 147, 148.

Raymond Mayerzak (oov)

She said the water quality that she tested there was good, the conductivity was…everything seemed to be normal.

And er..and like I said to her, well this is after the fact, you know if you guys you know had first of all, if you had tested the water last year when the truck went in the water, it think you’d have found a different story than what we are dealing with now and I think, what ever happened there, this is the end result.

Voiceover

Like many others who fear the impact of the fracking process, Raymond is left to contemplate his predicament.

But as if questions about its environmental impact were not enough, the oil and gas industry now faces a very different threat.

Doug McLinko (oov)

We’re in a valley right now because of the incredible low price of natural gas.

Doug McLinko

OPEC lead Saudi Arabia has declared war on shale energy in America.

Vera Scroggins

They are having trouble economically now, we’ve lost two maybe even three companies in my county at this point, they’ve stopped working.

Debroah Barr (oov)

Virtually everything was rented in town for a period of time and office space was at a premium and local people did have jobs.

Deborah Barr

…and they were very good paying jobs, I mean they were like twice what anything else pad around here.

Tony Ingraffea

The reason why shale was the last place the oil & gas industry went for fossil fuel development, the fundamental reason is that shale is basically impermeable and the only way that you can conceivably, marginally economically get oil or gas out of shale is to beat it to death.

Voiceover

To beat shale to death using the fracking process, requires a significant commitment of manpower and resources.

Tony Ingraffea

All the risks associated with oil & gas in general, which are no inconsequential, get magnified because of the scale of this activity. Many more wells, longer wells, longer to drill each well…

Tony Ingraffea (oov)

..many more wells per pad, many more wells per square mile, much more intense use of chemicals, much higher waste, a lot more trucking, a lot more piping, a lot more emissions , everything scales up…

Tony Ingraffea

…and as everything scales up, the risk factors go up.

Voiceover

The intensity of the production process makes shale gas a relatively expensive fuel to produce, requiring the skills of specialist oil & gas workers who move from project to project as the gas wells come on stream.

However, the falling oil price has put the breaks on new production, causing an estimated 100,000 job loses in the oil & gas industry in the US, as well as affecting local employment.

Carol French

We only have one rig operating in Bradford County right now, you will not see a lot of trucks on the road anymore, they’re just maintaining the wells, trying to maintain pipelines, that’s all you’re going to see.

Les Stone

These counties are depressed counties. The industry is pretty much gone, the only that’s left is farming in many of them and the farmers make a marginal living.

So I understand that some of these big landowners, they’re approached by the oil & gas companies and they are offered big money for their properties so they can lease them for fracking. I understand it, I get it you know, that’s a lot of money, and it puts their grandchildren in college.

Voiceover

In many parts of the US, landowners own their own mineral rights. So fracking was an attractive option for farmers like Glenn Felter. With failing eye-site, the offer of share in the gas revenues was very attractive.

Glenn Felter (oov)

Definitely attractive, got an income.

I’m glad to see something’s economically being done to help the whole area and helps my family farm and everything.

Glenn Felter

Dairy farming has gone, I mean I can count, sitting right here, right around us here, I can count a hand, full of farms that…gone. ‘Cause nobody can have their 40 cow dairy farm anymore .

A lot of these old farmers would’ve basically have had to sell their land into developments or whatever, to…live out their years…their retirement years let’s say.

Voiceover

But for farmers like the Felters, the slump in the oil price means they are now not receiving the income they had hoped for from the gas produced by wells on their land.

Glenn Felter

They promise you one thing and then they figure out a way to uh…so its more money in their pocket and less in yours.

Deborah Barr

I don’t think they should get to proceed to much further around here, because there are some real issues with the landowners that did allow fracking on their property, they are not being fairly compensated around here.

There are people that, in order to dress up their retirement, you know, a legitimate thought to help your retirement, they would have never allowed these rigs, their property to be disturbed in the manner that’s it been disturbed if they weren’t going to get a royalty cheque out of it.

Doug Mclinko

The problem is the monetary problem, is the money, we have one company that is taking if not all of people’s royalties, a lot of them. and that’s one of the things that as people leased their land, I am not sure in your country who owns the minerals, but you have to make sure that you do.

Voiceover

Chesapeake, the oil & gas company at the centre of the dispute over royalty payments has publically denied any wrong doing.

But the company is currently the subject of an investigation by Pennsylvania’s Sate Attorney General and is also facing independent legal action from landowners in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the United States.

Vera Scroggins

These corporations, they think they can last, they told us 100 years, then they told us 60 years for this energy, 20 years. And I can see how indebted they are, how they play their economic games, its going to end, so that’s what I tell everybody, its going to come to an end and that’s what I’m waiting for.

Voiceover.

While the economic woes of the shale gas industry are welcomed by anti-fracking campaigners, shale gas’ supporters are vociferous in their backing for the continued extraction of the fuel.

Doug McLinko

I am not going to get into the global warming argument with you because I am not a scientist. You know I believe that there’s climate change throughout history, I think we’ve seen it.

Doug McLinko (oov)

You know natural gas in out county has been the greatest thing to ever bring kids back home, their back on the farm, they graduate school, they go to technical school, they come back and go to work, they travel…

…as well as contributing to the federal government and the state government with already taxes [sic.] that are in place. So any argument about not developing it is ridiculous.

Doug McLinko

OPEC lead Saudi Arabia has declared war on shale energy in America, I mean they are driving down the price of crude oil, natural as has gone down. If we think that those people are just going to sit back and say ‘you know you’re right, let’s just compete with renewables’.

What we have is right under our feet, it s the answer to our local economy, our national economy, our state economy and it is the new foreign policy.

Voiceover

However, the geopolitical argument for shale gas does little to convince those who argue that the process is environmentally unsustainable.

Tony Ingraffea.

The climate doesn’t respond to political opinion, the climate responds to chemistry. And the chemistry is that the climate responds to both carbon dioxide and methane.

And we now know that the leakage, fugitive emissions, purposeful venting of methane from shale gas and oil development is very significant.

So significant that it belies the notion that natural gas is a bridge fuel to a green sustainable future.

Alex Lotorto

My feeling is that we were blessed with this creek and the state park and all of this beautiful creation, and we enjoy it –

…fishermen enjoy it probably the most and I hope that people think about future generations when they plan what kind of energy they are going to use and really think about whether they want to put any of this at risk.

Voiceover

Irrespective of the political, economic and environmental arguments for or against shale gas and fracking, the fact remains that many members of the community feel marginalized and victimized by the process.

None more so than Ray Kemble.

Ray Kemble

Homeland Security, Secret Service.

Les Stone

These guys showed up at your house?

Ray Kemble

Uh huh! They showed up with a SWAT team.

Les Stone

The Secret Service showed up with a SWAT team? Why?

Ray Kemble

Well, again…I’m going to blow up the gas wells,. This and that and everything else and the damn thing. And they even gave them the date and time I was going to go down and kill the president.

Ray Kemble (oov)

The point is you just don’t realise the frustration people have doing this shi….I mean here it is in black and white…uranium 234…I was told tomb [??] are weapons grade…Dear President Obama, and I mean I was really nice when I wrote this and everything else and everything else and he still blew us off.

Ray Kemble

And here I sit with no fricking goddamn water. Where do you go? Who do you see?

You’ve destroyed my life, you’ve destroyed my relationship, you’ve destroyed my business, you’ve destroyed my property, you can’t sell it, Ok. You can’t sell it with out water.

So a lot of things I just right…I quite doing anything with the house cause it’s like, why should I put money into this, its worth zero so what ever you put into it, you’re never going to see back.

I have fought every fricking agency you can think of. I still got my guns, I still got my permit and I’m still here. And I’m still talking. Just remember that.

Voiceover

Although Ray believes he has proof that fracking has contaminated his water in July 2012, the US Environment Protection Agency determined that the water tested in Dimock was fit to drink.

Ray Kemble (actuality)

That’s compliments of all the drinking & fracking.

Voiceover

Ray is not convinced.

Ray Kemble

This is the well tank that runs out, you know for the well for the house and we put the hose on to it because we run the water outside and I was down here the other day, I forgot what I came down for and I saw it was dripping and I was like “why?” so I wnet to get the flashlight and look real good at it. And I was like “Hmmmm?”.

Ray Kemble (oov)

So this is where it is starting to corrode, it’s starting to eat through. It’s eating through the concrete, it’s turning everything white where the water’s dripping at. Its all the chemicals and stuff that’s in the water.

Cameraman

So just explain what is going on Ray?

Ray Kemble

Well right now I’m just hooking up this hose, so we can run the water well into this bucket.

It’s a mystery every time we turn it on.

Voiceover

Ray begins to purge the stagnant water from the well system.

Ray Kemble

It’s not really clear.

Oh Christ there’s the small already.

Ray Kemble

You know being on the frack sites and everything else, I guess I am just a lot more sensitive to it, it hits me and I mean it just kills me.

Voiceover

After a few minutes, Rays well water starts to discolour.

Les Stone

Phew…stinks.

Les Stone

Well the water stinks. It sometimes comes out black, brown, today it’s kind of greyish green. Some of the worst I’ve seen.

Ray Kemble

Like I said before Les, this is water that EPA says is safe to drink and bathe in and when I turned round and went to pour them the glasses of water, they refused to drink it.

Would you drink it?

[to camera] Would you drink it?

So you know, they’re full of shit.

Ray Kemble

As I said when we run that well, these are the different times we’ve taken water out of the well. OK, and we haven’t got any of the black water, Craig’s got it. You just never know what you’re gonna get when you turn that well on.

Music fade out.

[ends]