Gasland Part II Page #5

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violations.

The "New York Times"

investigated and found that

wastewater from drilling was

being inadequately treated

and dumped back

into water supplies

all over Pennsylvania,

and with this much evidence

bubbling up across the state,

even the pro-drilling

Rendell administration

had to take action.

DEP issued violations to Cabot

and stopped them from drilling

in a 9-square-mile radius,

but no permanent solution

for residents' water contamination

had been proposed.

What the Dimock families

really wanted was permanent public water,

and someone who could

make it happen finally showed up to listen.

MAN, VOICE-OVER:
Lance Simmens.

I was special assistant

to Governor Ed Rendell

for Intergovernmental Affairs.

My primary responsibility

was to make sure

that the Governor knew, on the ground,

what was going on

in local communities.

There was something

obviously drastically wrong with this picture.

It's like, you know,

3 apples and a nail.

And I said point-blank

to the Governor,

who was sitting

within about 18 inches

from me in a meeting

one day, I said,

"We have got to get the people

of Dimock clean water.

"This is the United States

of America, and we need to have this

as a primary right for all

of our citizens."

He agreed and he asked me

what we should do about it.

And I said, "Let's connect

to a public water supply."

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
After Lance

Simmens got to the governor,

it felt like

a new day in Dimock.

Pushed by a new policy,

Department of Environmental

Protection Secretary John Hanger

releases videotapes

of Dimock wells.

We have video

of gas bubbling at those gas wells.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

The DEP revealed that Dimock wells

had inadequate cement,

cracked cement, or no cement.

The crucial part of the well

that's supposed to keep gas

from migrating

into aquifers had failed,

showing scientifically

that Cabot Oil & Gas

had contaminated

Dimock's water with methane.

[Drilling equipment clanging]

But PA DEP had the videos

for a year and a half,

so John Hanger, Secretary

of the Department, was in

the uncomfortable position of

calling his own administration's policy inadequate,

while at the same time

playing the hero.

HANGER:
We've had people

here in Pennsylvania

without safe

drinking water for close to two years.

That is totally,

totally unacceptable.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

The new policy was startling,

although it was just

common sense.

Pennsylvania would build

a water line to Dimock

from Montrose, 7 miles away--

the nearest municipal

water supply--

and the state would sue

Cabot Oil & Gas

for the cost--$12 million.

Protestors in the crowd

lifted signs of other towns in Pennsylvania

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