Gasland Part II Page #4

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of trying to negotiate with Cabot, the drilling company,

the Dimock families

bound together to sue.

When the lawsuit broke,

so did their silence.

Bill Ely lit his water on fire

on every channel on television.

And Sheila Ely, his wife,

the mysterious voice

on the phone,

invited me over to look at some

of her documentation.

I like my pictures

on the wall.

When you have

frames, you can't

get all the pictures

up that you want.

FOX:
Uh-huh.

So I just laminate,

and I just keep

laminating and laminating.

I have a laminator.

BILL ELY:
My ancestors

settled this spot

right here, back in

the 1800s.

I'm, like,

fifth generation, and I hope there's

5 more generations

after me that live here.

And I'm not selling.

I'm not leaving.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Just across the road, their nephew,

Scott Ely, had worked

for Cabot.

Now he was the key witness

in their lawsuit.

Imagine working for a company

that destroyed

your family's water...

We feel like horses being

pushed to a dirty hole.

And, you know, horses

won't drink bad water. They just won't do it.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Or having to tell your kids that they can't swim

or fish in the creeks

and ponds you grew up in.

I like fishing.

I like frog-catching.

Me, too!

All I ever do for my life.

Yeah, even when we go

in the pond,

we try to catch fish,

we just get sick.

Cabot should just deal

with us in the courtroom.

They don't want to do that.

They want to street-fight all this.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

The big, strong Ely family was ready for a fight.

Up and down Carter Road,

Craig and Julie Sautner and Ray Kemble

had created a kind

of art installation

of their well water

on their front lawns...

All we want is to, you know,

have some kind of normalcy here.

We want good water.

That's all we want.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
And a kind of

leader and spokesperson emerged from the Dimock families.

I've gone to

every congressman, representative,

anyone who would listen:

DEP, Cabot, anyone I could think of.

Begged for water

from Cabot.

All these people

begged--begged for water.

They told us there would be

one well out here, one well.

And within the following year,

we have 30 wells now.

I dread to imagine

what's going to happen to property value out here.

How would you

advertise this house: "Bring your own water"?

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

There was so much noise coming out of Dimock,

it felt like the town was

standing in for the whole state.

But Dimock wasn't alone.

Over the past 4 years,

a huge change had swept

across Pennsylvania.

Governor Ed Rendell

had rolled out the red carpet

for the gas drilling industry.

Thousands of wells drilled...

thousands of reported

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