Should The U.S. Ban Fracking? - YouTube

The shale revolution has turned the energy world upside down.

Finally, the United States may be nearing the long term goal of every

president since Richard Nixon becoming energy independent.

Net exporter of energy

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S.

will become a net energy exporter by 2020.

What's gone on the last few years has been nothing short of a miracle.

Western Pennsylvania, the new Saudi Arabia, of the United States.

But it's not at no cost.

Because you own the mineral rights, you essentially get very well paid to

take that environmental and personal risk.

While many have benefited,

There's hope for a long time that there wasn't.

Some say they have lost a great deal.

I've been hospitalized for drinking this water.

It took one sip.

My kidney fell, my spleen fell and was left with a 2mm ulcer in my

duodenum and then spent four days in the hospital.

With so much at stake in the fight for energy independence and protecting

our environment, should the U.S.

ban fracking?

In what became known as a shale revolution, hydraulic fracturing became

widely used across the U.S.,

both natural gas and oil can be extracted using this process.

About half the natural gas in the United States comes out of the same

wells that produce crude oil.

So in other words, you produce crude oil and natural gas comes along with

it. As of 2017, the U.S.

Energy Information Administration estimated there were about 2459 trillion

cubic feet of dry natural gas in the U.S.

Assuming the rate of production stays the same, that means the U.S.

has enough dry natural gas to last about 80 years.

The Marcellus Shale holds the largest natural gas reserve in North

America. In 2018, 6.2

trillion cubic feet of gas was produced in Pennsylvania alone.

That's nearly a third of total U.S.

consumption. What's gone on the last few years has been nothing short of a

miracle in terms of companies being able to reduce their cost and produce

crude gas, NGLs or whatever it is.

Far, far below what anybody thought they could do.

The real revolution, which was first in natural gas but then moved to oil,

was to combine horizontal drilling with fracking, and that then totally

revolutionized U.S.

oil production. The revolutionary breakthrough combined two existing

technologies. First is horizontal drilling.

Essentially drilling straight down and then turning at an angle to target

part of the shale formation.

The second is hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

This involves pumping water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into

shale formations to fracture the rock, allowing oil and gas trapped inside

to flow. From 2007 to 2018, natural gas production increased by nearly 60

percent. Prices dropped from almost $9 to $2.5

per BTU. Crude oil production grew from 5 to over 10 million barrels a

day, which led to a drop in imports by 40 percent.

That meant big energy savings for the everyday consumer.

In October 2019, the Council of Economic Advisers estimated the shale

revolution saves American families of four about $2,500 annually.

They claim nearly 80 percent of the total savings comes from a lower price

for natural gas.

Today, natural gas mining and extraction employs more than 162,000 workers

in the U.S. From 2004 to 2018, over 350,000 jobs were created nationwide.

And many of those jobs were based in places above the Marcellus Shale in

states like Pennsylvania.

In PA, the first unconventional well was drilled in Washington County in

2004. By 2009, there were 821 active wells in 2011,

1956.

There's a lot of hope in this area because people are doing well when you

can provide... This is Diana Irey Vaughn.

She's been the Washington County Commissioner for 24 years and a staunch

supporter of the gas industry.

We've heard from so many individuals who are leaseholders in the industry

how this has changed their financial future for generations to come.

There have been a number of farmers that have told us that if it had not

been for the leases, they probably would have been out of business.

With the downturn in the steel industry and the coal industry, there was

like this vacuum. And a lot of the people that I went to school with, they

have since moved away.

But now there's something filling that void there.

There are jobs. There's hope where for a long time, there wasn't.

This is Richard and Bonnie Moore.

They are farmers in Washington County in southwestern Pennsylvania.

This farm has been in Bonnie's family since the 1860s.

It's 185 acres just a mile and a half up the road.

Rich has a 90-acre farm that he inherited from his family.

In 2005, the oil and gas industry came knocking on the door.

Both farms, at least two range resources.

Everybody was excited.

About oh boy, we're going to have gas wells. And when Range came here and

drilled the wells, they told us everything that they would do.

And they did what they said.

It was really exciting for a lot of the people around here that owned

their mineral rights.

Bonnie and Rich didn't feel comfortable sharing how much they've made from

their gas leases.

But according to documents CNBC has analyzed, it's significant.

They've since bought two farms worth nearly 2 million dollars.

You have the ability to essentially pay someone for the environmental

risk, which is as much about the problems under the surface as about on

the surface, such as, for example, from all the trucks and all the guys

working on the oil that you don't really want those people around if you

have the choice or unless you're paid.

In the U.S., because you own the mineral rights, you essentially get very

well paid to take that environmental and personal risk.

Bryan Lakonich is also a Washington County resident with a gas lease.

They sold it as the new Saudi Arabia of the United States, western

Pennsylvania. Your kids aren't going to have to go to the Middle East to

fight wars again.

For having two boys of age, now 18 and 19.

It felt wonderful that we could be energy self-sufficient.

So when the company came to me with four people in my living room here and

said, hey, you're looking at 8 to 13 million dollars in the first three

years. I said, where do I sign?

Would you like to put it on my front porch?

Bryan's lessee is Chevron.

His contract included a $25,000 signing bonus and a royalty payment that

was $12,000 at its peak to now between $500 to $800 a month.

I used a nice few acre orchard here and I used to plant tomatoes, peppers

and vegetables here.

Every week or so, I'd go up on the pad and talk to them and hang out.

I was the cheerleader, you know, I wore my boots and my helmet.

That particular day I carried a camera.

Accurate date is 12/17/12.

And what you can see here is the frack ponds.

They pulled the liners out of them and left the polluted material right on

the ground. They pumped the other one out, pulled the liner, left the wet

soil, and they were in a rush to fill this in.

But what I found was a trash pump in that pit pumping water out of there

onto my own property.

This wasn't trucked out.

Here's your liners right there on the ground.

That's not permitted.

That's toxic.

They never restored to site, never so much water runoff that it came down

against my house and fractured the foundation and actually pushed this

house about three inches.

Bryan made these allegations in dozens of complaints he filed with the

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, or DEP.

I've had six years of water testing already.

Still, DEP and Chevron stand firm that the issue with Bryan's drinking

water is not a consequence of gas drilling on his property.

Chevron told CNBC that Bryan's water quality is about the same now as

before the wells were drilled and that the chemical composition of his

water is distinctly different than the water from their operations.

It also appears that DEP was aware of Chevron's alleged lack of oversight.

According to documents CNBC has reviewed, they issued Chevron at least two

violations three days prior to Bryan's photos.

One for discharge of pollutional material to waters of Commonwealth and

the other for improperly discharging topol water.

Chevron corrected these violations.

According to an appraisal ordered by Bryan's insurance company, the damage

to the house was partly due to the runoff from the drill site.

However, Chevron's own report, done by another company, did not find a

link. This is a sample from Bryan's house and showing that it's...

John Stolz is a professor of environmental microbiology at Duquesne

University. He's an outspoken supporter of renewable energy and ran for

Congress in 2017.

This is a summary of all his, with the exception of the two samples that

my group took, it just shows you the pre-drill sample and then the DEP

water samples. Clearly as the months go on, you can see that bromide is

consistently there.

Bromide is one of those things that you don't typically expect to find in

freshwater aquifer or a water source, groundwater source.

When we ran Bryan's samples in this analysis, it was clear to me at least

that they did share some of the characteristics that you see that are

characteristic of oil and gas brines.

So that's important to me because this is what Bryan is talking about,

that, you know, these wells on his property affected his source of water.

That's a responsibility of our Department of Environmental Protection.

When they look at pre-drill testing and testing is done afterwards, if

there's been an alteration in the quality of that water, then replacement

is required. Good morning your honors may please the court.

My name is John Smith.

This man is John Smith.

He's considered somewhat of a legend in Washington County.

He's been before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court three times.

The DEP has a limited set of parameters and what they're testing for.

So they're not going to the site and asking the company, the drilling

company, what did you use?

What did you release? They're coming with a preconceived set of parameters

that they're testing for.

Bryan says his nine year old son, Ryan, has struggled with his health

since he was three.

A toxicology report shows that his asthma, headaches, coughing, tinnitus

and leg pain could be linked to the water contamination.

They haven't figured out why he's incontinent.

The acute medical therapy is indicated in the exposure.

Certainly we agree with more DEP and EPA involvement to address this

exposure. Our main recommendation from a toxic, logical and exposure

perspective is to stay away from the exposure source and in parentheses

the house slight air and water as much as possible.

How do you stay away from your home?

I'd like to know.

Bryan, what are you doing about all of this?

What can you do about this?

The level of documentation that somebody is going to need to bring, for

instance, water contamination case there again, should be, should start

with the DEP that the DEP does itss job successfully, then they will

provide the necessary documentation.

Why the numbers are, in my opinion, relatively low is the way the DEP

deals with these issues, is that if your water is contaminated and you can

work out a deal with the will and gas industry, the DEP will not issue a

citation or will not issue a notice of violation for that water

contamination. Ultimately, at this point, I just want to get a buyout and

move my son away from here and myself so we can try to get better and have

a normal life.

What's the amount that you ask for?

100,000 a year for 6 years for the lack of use of my property and 70,000

to fix the house. What was their reaction when you said 670?

They reacted like that was fine.

They were going to take it back and give me an answer.

When folks see dollar signs behind stuff, they'll try and chase it all day

long. I would share with you that our industry is highly compliant, or

highly focused, and I think when it's all said and done with, you'll find

that most folks have been vindicated of any wrongdoing.

Clearly, the shale revolution's contributions are nuanced.

Abolishing the practice of fracking would have protected people like

Bryan, but also would have barred families like the Moores from profiting

off of their mineral rights.

Since renewables are not yet able to sustain American energy consumption,

banning fracking would take the U.S.

off the path to energy independence, and we would also return to importing

more energy. Consumers would likely pay a premium for importing oil and

natural gas, but would be protected from the potential environmental harm

caused by fracking.

We're really stuck right here and we've got to see it through.

Hopefully it doesn't kill us while we're doing it.

One state senator proposed a constitutional amendment to ban the

procedure, while others proposed adding a tax on the citizens to help

build out new infrastructure.

The Pennsylvania attorney general's office is pursuing a criminal

investigation of environmental crimes in Washington County, Pennsylvania,

as it relates to the oil and gas industry.

In an e-mail to CNBC, the AG's office did not confirm and declined to

comment. On the national level, in 2019, the Trump administration

announced plans to allow fracking on over a million additional acres of

public and private lands in California.

Presidential candidates Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have

both publicly called for a nationwide ban on fracking.

However, former Vice President Joe Biden has said he would not ban

fracking and does not oppose new drilling on federal lands.

In a CNN town hall on climate change, Biden said he would examine existing

fracking sites to see if they are safe, but that states have control of

their lands. We could pass national legislation, but I don't think we

would get it done. The development of fracking has changed the debate on

energy in the U.S. forever.

While some have profited significantly, others have faced incredible

hardships. You know what Lincoln said?

You know, you can you can please some of the people some of the time, but

you can't please all of them all the time.