By Mario Garcia and Ronnie Polidoro
Rock Center
The United States has been called the Saudi Arabia of natural gas -- by President Barack Obama no less -- and in some of the economically hardest hit areas in this country there are signs of recovery. Across America natural gas exploration has opened the job market with tens of thousands of good paying jobs with benefits and 401Ks. To get all that gas, however, the industry uses a method known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” and some worry if it’s safe.
Rock Center’s Harry Smith visited an oil fracking site over a year ago and reported on a boomtown in Williston, N.D. Since the report, viewers raised concerns of the process’ environmental impact. So to dive deeper into a process under pressure from the public, Harry Smith visited multiple natural gas fracking sites.
Fracking releases natural gas encased in giant underground formations of shale rock. Using a drilling rig, “frackers” send a pipe 5,000 to 7,000 feet vertically then they curve it horizontally through a shale bed. Water mixed with sand and chemicals is sent down the pipe under tremendous pressure and shot into the shale bed, forcing out the natural gas. A pipe is then put down the drill hole and the gas flows through that pipe and is collected. After the drilling the chemicals mixed with the water and sand need to be disposed of.
Americans have been trying to crack loose the natural gas for decades. In 1969, the Atomic Energy Commission even set off a nuclear explosion underground in Colorado to try to get at it. It didn’t work. Since then, new technology to set the gas free has made widespread exploration possible. Some of the richest beds are in New York, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, but more than 800 gas wells were drilled in 2011 around the country, all of which utilize fracking to get the gas.
Already, the boom is benefiting consumers.
In Scranton, Pa., local utility company UGI Energy Services recently tore up West Locust Street and, within a few hours, had installed a natural gas line to Howard Penny’s house. Penny, a local tire technician, told Smith that price -- natural gas is currently about one-third the cost of fuel oil -- was the reason he switched from oil to natural gas.
“It’s a no brainer. It’s a lot cheaper,” Penny said.
The boom in energy is amazing even to famous oil and gasman T. Boone Pickens. Pickens has spent a lifetime in the energy industry and has tried his hand at just about every kind of energy – even wind.
“If you had asked me 10 years ago now this going to happen, I would’ve laughed at you,” Pickens told Smith.
Pickens says natural gas is cleaner, cheaper, abundant and ours.
The boom also is helping the beleaguered U.S. manufacturing sector.
In Youngstown, Ohio, TMK-IPSCO, a new state-of-the-art pipe finishing factory, keeps 75 employees busy on two shifts -- all to service gas exploration.
TMK-IPSCO’s CEO Vicky Avril has been in the steel business for several decades, most of her life, much of the time trimming payrolls and laying off workers. But fracking has fundamentally changed the equation, she says.
“To me, this is a career maker,” Avril told Smith. She believes fracking is a great avenue to walk toward energy independence and provide more jobs for people who have been out of work.
That’s good news for Ohioans like Kyle Burrati, who was unemployed for a year before being hired at TMK-IPSCO.
“Honestly, I feel really blessed that I got a job here because, you know, the whole United States has been hit by the recession and for them to come here and open this plant, it’s wonderful,” Burrati said graciously.
But some in Youngstown aren’t convinced, including Ohio State Rep. Bob Hagan who grew up in Youngstown and saw the town’s old steel mills and blast furnaces fade away. Hagan, a Democrat, says he is worried about the environmental consequences that will accompany the new source of energy.
Hagan and other environmental groups worry that disposal of toxic fracking waste could poison the region’s water supply. The concern is that the chemical used in fracking are toxic and could contaminate water supplies.
That disposal has already left some in Youngstown shaken in ways no one anticipated. In 2011 on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, Youngstown had two significant earthquakes. The first was a 2.7 magnitude quake and the second 4.0. Columbia University seismologist John Armbruster was hired by the state of Ohio to determine the cause of those quakes. In his expert opinion the high pressure used to dispose of the waste water caused the quakes. In March 2012 the state agreed and closed the site indefinitely. The state of Ohio believed him and shut down the well where the fracking water was being disposed. It remains closed.
“Youngstown has no history of earthquakes before these for the 100 plus years since the area was settled,” Armbruster said.
Another state struggling to figure out how to tap the boundless energy is New York. There, it’s an issue so contentious it has pitted neighbor against neighbor, especially in the rolling hills upstate.
In Cooperstown, N.Y., for example, the CEO of beer maker of Ommegang Brewery, Simon Thorpe, is proud of what his company brews, but is concerned that fracking will ruin his pitch perfect ingredient: water.
“You can’t make world class beer with polluted water,” said Thorpe.
However, a mile down the road from Ommegang, at Jennifer Huntington’s dairy farm, sentiment about fracking is markedly different. Jennifer’s family feel like they have been good stewards to the land and note that water is just as important in milk as in beer. But Jennifer is convinced a fracking can be done safely. In fact, she sold the rights to drill for natural gas below her precious pasture, a move that she said has made her an unpopular person in town.
“We all love this area, none of us want to see it ruined. We just kind of have a different vision,” Huntington told Smith.
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A 2.7 and 4.0 earthquake is "significant"?! You can barely feel those.
Some people can feel quakes of 2+ magnitude and by the time you get to 4:
"Noticeable shaking of indoor objects and rattling noises. Slightly felt outside. Generally causes none to slight damage. Moderate to significant damage very unlikely. Some falling of objects."
And if the quakes are in areas with faults? The fracking quakes will trigger larger quakes.
Given that many (if not most) folks peruse healdines and rarely read to the end of an article, the headline, subtly worded will sway public opinion. We have a way (through fracking) to be completely energy independent from Middle Eastern energy sources. the technology isn't perfect - but it's going to improve. If left to the market - it most certainly will. If left to the government . . . it's doubtful . . . .
I think if left to the market fracking will get cheaper not safer. Companies left to their own devices are not clean, or safe. Only through intervention and regulation have we seen safety improvements and less of an impact on our environment. I want fracking to work in America but not if everything else will suffer. Let capitalistic markets do what they can to meet demand by the most economic means but lets make sure the calculus includes, health and safety issues as well. Governments have a purpose its important to remember that. And Cheap should always include to cost of doing something safefly and with as little environmental impact as possible.
the technology needs to improve before it's allowed to be used. otherwise we'll all be able to set fire to the water from our sinks like in the movie gasland before we get the technology to remove the gas safely. personally, i'd rather have a constant supply of drinkable water than lower natural gas prices cause i use a hell of a lot more water than fuel.
If we forget the potential health risks (besides earthquakes), It's a shame this article did not mention the amount of jobs that will be lost if fracking is allowed in New York State. It is also untrue that this is a fight between "environmentalist" and the gas industry, many people in my area who would not consider themselves environmentalists are deeply concerned with a myriad of issues that pertain to fracking.
This will not make us completely energy free.There are many known problems with fracking,including water one can set on fire, from peoples faucets, makes them ill, from polluted well water, live stock dying and large numbers of females unable to deliver live births
People are rushing out to lease their land, hoping to become rich quick. But who is doing the long term studies independent of these large oil companies? So far, very few, with their hands tied.
What most people don't realize is because the way the industry s run, those oil companies aren't even required to list the chemicals used in their fracking.That should make all of us pause.
Since when has the big oil companies ever cared about the little guys? Why would they start to now? Any one remember history and the gold rush days?The gilded age,Robber barons, later countless empty ghost towns to be found now.
Just wave the green in from of struggling people's faces, and they will sign. Not knowing they have signed away their health, and clean land. When the big oil companies are done,they will move on. However, the land owners never even guess the nasty trick played on them until it's too late,by the time the damage is discovered.
Not only will it fall on the land owner, with the value of his land being lower, it will fall on him to live with the consequences of the mess. Already places where fracking has been done, show a lower value of property. Lawsuits have been thrown out of court, against major oil companies.
People had better wake up.If you don't have your health, what good does getting a miliion bucks do for you? Or if you can't sell your property.You can bet the big industry is paying for lots of good media coverage, and keeping the negative news out of sight.All that matters is getting the product and selling it for profit.
That person setting his water on fire coming out of his faucet? He was doing that before the fracking started!
Joe E.,
Methane can and does occur in wells due to fracking:
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commision "concluded that Aimee Ellsworth’s well contained a mixture of biogenic and thermogenic methane that was in part attributable to oil and gas development, and Mrs. Ellsworth and an operator reached a settlement in that case.” [COGCC]
According to ScienceDaily: "A study by Duke University researchers has found high levels of leaked methane in well water collected near shale-gas drilling and hydrofracking sites. The scientists collected and analyzed water samples from 68 private groundwater wells across five counties in northeastern Pennsylvania and New York...'At least some of the homeowners who claim that their wells were contaminated by shale-gas extraction appear to be right,' says Robert B. Jackson, Nicholas Professor of Global Environmental Change and director of Duke's Center on Global Change." [May 2011]
If we forget the potential health risks (besides earthquakes), It's a shame this article did not mention the amount of jobs that will be lost if fracking is allowed in New York State. It is also untrue that this is a fight between "environmentalist" and the gas industry, many people in my area who would not consider themselves environmentalists are deeply concerned with a myriad of issues that pertain to fracking.
very interesting very interesting
In our area of upstate New York, half of the community are second home owners, we also have a thriving tourist industry. The largest employer for local people in our area is construction, largely for second home owners. If fracking happened in our neighborhood, the tourist industry and the second home market would be decimated, after all who wants to have a second home next to a gas well... Where would this leave our area after the boom, I suspect, we will have a scarred landscape, no equity in our homes no jobs and possibly water that is undrinkable.
arw2, the largest employer for locals is not constuction, but the hospital in town. What brings people to my town is the HoF. There is a non-profit org. who has maped all properties in Otsego cty. who have leased their prop. to drilling cos.I love our 9mile lake, the State parks, the clean air,water,land here. I don't want to see it disappear. It's why I've lived here for 53yrs.
Coop-13326 I'm assuming you think i am talking about Cooperstown, and Otsego country, I am not. In my country, contraction is still the largest employer.
Apologies, auto correct issue: what I meant to say was "In my county, construction is still the largest employer".
So one "expert" proves something?
Sounds more like the farce that happened recently in Italy when some scientists were found guilty for NOT putting out a n earthquake warning. Even though there is no scientific or reliable way to forecast earthquakes.
I hated reading about that. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation with cases like that and especially volcanoes and volcanic eruptions. If you suggest too early that something might happen and nothing does, people don't trust you anymore. If you don't give a warning soon enough, it's still your fault. No one seems to understand that eruptions aren't so easily predicted, and earthquakes even less so (if at all).
That would be Williston, NORTH Dakota.
The amount of gas and the idea it is "cheap" is ALL HYPE! The decline rates are so steep that they have to keep drilling new wells all the time to give the illusion of 'bounty,' and they are losing money hand over fist because they have to keep drilling, even when prices are so low, so as not to lose the leases. This is not going to be the situation forever, prices will rise again. Especially if they export it to countries that will pay five times as much. That's why it's cheap, because it's the latest Wall St. darling (read bubble) and they just keep throwing money at it and fueling the hype, not because there is so much gas. Come on NBC, do some real research, not this lazy journalism that is practically an advertisement for the oil and gas industry.
The recent report from former DEP Commissioner John Hanger indicates that the bust cycle of the boom-and-bust economy brought to you by fracking has already begun in PA as the unemployment there increases while the rest of the country's decreases. Jobs may be available for a few, for a few years, but then what? Accidents and spills will occur, water will be contaminated, people and animals will be sick, our food supply will be contaminated, our air will be polluted, we will have added to the carbon emissions that hasten global climate change, housing costs go up for locals, hospital emergency rooms become crowded, crime rates will go up, our roads will be destroyed, and we will have spent less time investing in sustainable, renewable energy. This is NOT the kind of future I want for New York. New York can become a leader in creating jobs through renewable energy, we can keep the lights on and our homes warm and keep our food, air, water, and children safer and healthier by rejecting fracking. Fossil fuels are obsolete. New York must embrace the future.
The quantities of shale gas are not unlimited unless you want to totally destroy all wilderness areas with wells, pipelines, compressor stations, and access roads to all of those. The pollution caused by fracking, spills, accidents, explosions, flooding, migrating methane, etc., has already caused significant illness in humans and both wild and domestic animals. The leaking of methane at every stage of harvesting the gas results in a very potent greenhouse gas many times that of CO2 getting into the atmosphere. We may need the shales gas at some point, but there is no reason to be in a rush to get all of it soon--at least not until the industry finds better and safer ways to do it.
It is great that people get jobs from natural gas development. Now, ask the people who live next to these wells. Ask them how they have come to enjoy the "benefits' of gas drilling. The discussion is not whether gas is clean to burn. It is. The discussion is with the EXTRACTION of gas. How many people, animals ,farms, water, land, air is consumed and destroyed by this EXTRACTION process. Sure, we can have jobs, and this article points to the jobs. But what happens AFTER the gas is taken and the people leave? What happens when an "unintended spill" happens and WHO will foot the bill for the destruction it leaves behind?#.UM
JN5YU7hq8 What businesses ( tourism, yoghart, farms, orchids, organic farms, breweres) will be impacted by this industrial activity. And then there's the landowners, who now have to prove that water was tainted......
by-fracking-was-documented-in-1987/?mobile=ncTHEY are required to show cause.NOT the gas companies. Is this democracy? or plutocracy? who are "we " protecting? Certainly not the citizens in each of these states.
Its all good for now..For now..
but when the LOCAL wells run dry ..Then what...all that boom money MOVES on..To the next wells...Petroleum based industry is FINITE...It will run dry ..So why do we keep doing the same thing over and over again ?? Because were human it's easy and we are incredibly short sighted..Creatures..Easy Gas easy money..Whats to worry about...Well the fact that at Some time down the road ..All these Booms will bust because it's FINITE...
Bang the Oil and Gas Co's made profit..The local economy got a shot in the arm..We have seen it over and over again...It will pass...But threw it all before it and after it..The SUN still shines.... The wind Still blows...and Humans stand around scratching there heads..WONDERING how there going get Energy...and an INCOME...HUMMMMM
Are we just stupid or what..Intelligent....I'm not so sure... not so sure at all.....
We started having earthquakes here in Arkansas (all over the state) last year where we've not had them before. After investigation, they were attributed to "fracking" that was being done. They stopped the fracking and the earthquakes stopped. Serious business!!!
Many gas industry jobs do not offer benefits. Many small rural hospitals have lost money treating rig workers who lack insurance and permanent addresses for billing. The boom-bust nature of the extraction business and the short life spans of wells are huge economic problems. See
Even larger problems are the environmental ones, including the huge greenhouse gas footprint of the extraction, processing, and transporting of the fracked fuels. And it wasn't that detonating a nuclear device didn't adequately frack the shale, it was that the gas was so contaminated by radiation it could not be used. Also, the fluid that comes back out of the well is only some of what was sent down into it. The rest is brine that had been locked in the shale, which, besides being several times saltier than sea water, contains heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and frequently radioactive elements. This report is trying to make a very complex situation simple. The public deserves a much more comprehensive picture.
Having been in the industry for over 40 yrs - the industry has better benefits then most industries.
Talk about a footprint - have you ever seen the base of the windmills? There is a huge footprint and land not usable for anything. The farmers farm closely up to the well. Windmills are not (at this time )efficient. Plus they kill thousand of birds and bats. Also the vibration has been shown to upset the animals. A gov't study shows millions of birds killed in a year. Solar- Insects are drawn to the shine on the pannels and are fried. Millions.
Fracing has become a WITCH HUNT. Oh and go see that new movie about fracing-
With Matt Damon- I believe the UAE paid for the production (check it out!). Which states they are putting money into the environmental movement to stop the US from needing foreign Oil. Maybe all this huge hype is financed by foreign money.
Whenever you want to talk about the energy industry it is get the money first and then we will see if it causes future problems some other time after we go to the bank to count our money. There is so much money being passed out to drill everywhere it is difficult to get truthful and meaningful dialogue or investigations on the subject. It is an interesting coincidence how the economy takes a dive with oil prices devaluing the dollar and more people facing economic hardship and low and behold someone comes in with piles of cash to drill on your land............hmmmmm! Makes me wonder???
Leading into the piece Harry Smith overstates without question the abundance of gas, 100, 200 years. This industry pushed myth of 100 years of shale gas has made as far as the White House and that is a shame. The truth is, according to the federal Energy Information Agency, the US has only 4% of the worlds proven (natural) gas. That is only enough to last us 11 years at current rates of consumption. Getting the facts right is essential to the health of the environment and the economy. The shale gas play is just like the mortgage bubble, only this time the bubble is explosive and filled with toxins.
There are so many more issues to cover in the ongoing discussion of fracking that the report here is sadly lacking. Nothing spoken about the health affects? Nothing about the financial loophole nightmares of frack leases? Nothing about the huge drain of our fresh water supplies? Noise pollution? Air pollution? Accumulative affects of toxicity? Methane migration? Road destruction? Redioactivity? on and on. These are not little side issues - each one has its own quagmire of questions and cons.
To continue to literally turn the Earth inside out is insane. Carbon based fossil fuels are not the way of the future. Precious fresh water belongs on the surface in the ecosystem and not to be contaminated and then stored within the Earth!
Brian Williams/Rock Center - you can do better reporting than this!
Barb is right and did a great job listing some of the unmentioned major concerns.
The notion that fracked natural gas is cleaner than any other fossil fuel is laughable and borders insulting.
Newsflash, this is the 21st century and we should quit running the world on methods first discovered by stone age man.
This is not good journalism, because you confuse two separate issues, Fracking and earthquakes caused by disposal wells. Fracking did not cause the earthquakes, a fluid disposal well caused the earthquakes. The headline "Fracking provides boundless energy, jobs, and earthquakes?" makes a misleading statement and could cause unnecessary damage to an industry and the country.
Why is this important? First, to solve any problem you must understand the problem. Your headline would leave me to believe that if we just ban fracking, these manmade earthquakes would stop. Not true. The National academies of Science, in a 2012 report, called "Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies" Reports "…hydraulically fracturing a well as presently implemented for shale gas recovery does not pose a high risk for induced felt seismic events." The next conclusion states "Injection for disposal of waste water derived from energy technologies into the subsurface pose some risk for induced seismicity, but very few events have been documented over the past several decades relative to the large number of disposal wells in operation." There are 640,000 disposal wells in the USA used by many industries including geothermal. The proper fix in this Ohio case is to stop injecting into that well and go use another.
The Damage? This is the type of headline some people latch onto in an effort to "ban fracking". This activist movement strongly believes they have good intentions, but never stops to think about what happens if successful. Further, they rely on fear and misinformation, like this article, to scare people. Fear is powerful even if it's not justified.
A ban on fracking is a ban on drilling and oil and gas development. Think about success. We can ban a 63 year old technology, used over 2.5 million times (JPT), that by itself does not contaminate ground water, and production drops quickly. Energy prices rise, imports increase, coal consumption fills some of the void. Is this what we want? What about the poor people? If producing wells or injecting waste water is the problem lets improve those processes, but a ban on fracking is not the fix.
Earthquakes are only a small part of this issue. Please look at this gutwrenching Youtube video statement of Carol French - landowner, dairy farmer, wife, mom, shale-ionaire (or so she was promised) telling what Brian Williams does not, and should.
...and consider the following rational questions:
Why did Dick Cheney need to lobby for a loophole for the chemicals in fracking to be exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act if those chemicals are so safe? Why are Syracuse and New York City's water supplies protected from fracking? If what fracking proponents are calling our great economic salvation is really true, then by rights, Pennsylvania should be loaded with shale-ionaires... where ARE they? Do we, for the eleven years of gas available in the Marcellous Shale, want this in New York?
We owe it to Carol French (and all the other farmers who have had this experience) to not poison anyone else... and Brian Williams and NBC News, you owe it to the public to publish Carol's experience and the many others like her. I hope at some point that Mrs. French and her family, and eventually all others, are justly compensated for their loss and their pain.
BTW... Woodstock, has become the first municipality to call for legislation to make fracking a Class C felony. It's about time!
Link for YouTube video (if it doesn't appear in previous comment) is
"From the Frontlines of Fracking, Carol French, Bradford Co, PA"
All the naysayers, whether its global warming, fracking whatever - when it turns out they are wrong..are nowhere to be found. Maybe if all the For Fracking people had to sign something that said they would have to be identified and pay if wrong we would have more meaningful discussion vs. lets just rush ahead because its money.
As I understand the science from real experts I have spoken to, Fracking can not cause significant earthquakes as these come from tectonic plates miles down in the crust well below even the deepest of the injection wells. When faults move deep in the earth we feel them as major events on the surface. Surface events do not influence these events even in the slightest. Fear ignorance and empower truth - focus on keeping people informed about the fracking fluids and proper disposal and let the US step into energy freedom.
If you speak to experts, it doesn’t help the public much if you don’t list their names. According to livescience.com, seismologist Cliff Frohlich at the University of Texas at Austin notes that “the Barnett Shale hosts more than 100 wells with similar injection rates that experienced no nearby earthquakes during the time he studied them. He suggests that fluid injection may trigger earthquakes only if fluids reach and relieve friction on a nearby fault.” How does this or doesn’t this agree with the information you have, and what exactly your information?
Also, do you see earthquakes as the only real problem facing us from fracking? If your answer is yes, I would disagree. Issues regarding unsustainable water usage, wastewater issues (some fracking wastewater, which contains known and suspected carcinogens, is dumped directly into Colorado rivers while 20% of it sits in holding ponds where chemicals evaporate into the air [see the Denver Post]; fracking does not have to adhere to the Safe Drinking Act), and methane release are a few. (In at least some cases methane release is more harmful than other fossil fuels: “A report in Nature stated that in some cases the escape of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide ‘could effectively offset the environmental edge that natural gas is said to enjoy over other fossil fuels.’”–Discover, Jan/Feb 2013)
This is for all you frickers who think fracking is so great. How many of you would want this in your backyards? I am originally from Columbia County PA. last year on my way home from Maine I decided to take a detour back to DE. and drive through the once beautiful Sullivan County mountains in PA. Boy was I in for a shock, fracking everywhere !! beautiful pristine mountain streams ruined, the land looked dirty like it had been raped and discarded like garbage, I was so upset and when I stopped for breakfast at a little Mom and Pop restaurant that looked like a little log cabin home I asked them what was going on up here? everyone started talking like they knew me for years. Their was not one person sitting there in favor of what was going on... not one. I asked one patron while she was drinking her coffee why have you people allowed them to do this her answer was "they really did not have much of a choice" One gentleman went as far to say his neighbor gave permission, he did not so they used his neighbors land to access the gas under his. I finished breakfast and proceeded my journey further up the mountain to visit with a high school friend it was spring time and she lives on several wooded acres with a pond as we were sitting out on her deck I noted how quiet it was, not one bird chirping in fact I saw no birds at all when I told my friend how odd this was she went on to tell me about how since the fracking began she rarely saw any wildlife anymore. I just could not believe it I asked myself how in America could this be happening and why. There is enough solar power for all of us we could all be off the grid if we wanted to yet these big companies come in trash our land and bully the land owners to hell with you people and to hell with your fracking.