Extraction. Its also, fracking can be spelled with a c, its also the term is high volume hydraulic fracturing or hvhf which is really what were going to be talking to this afternoon. Next slide, please. So the thing thats important when were talking about fracking is that theres often a very important disconnect between what industry is saying and what is expected and understood in the popular press and the public. Of so when industry says there arent any accidents attributed to fracking, theyre talking about a very small portion of the shale gas extraction process. When the public and most journalists talk about fracking, theyre talking about the entire shale gas extraction process. So theres, its important to understand this distinction. Sometimes people are saying things that are technically true but are misleading in the context because of the disconnect between the language. Next slide. So this is what the shale gas extraction process looks like. And this is from a u. S. Epa study that is studying the impacts on water. Shale gas has and the impact here has a multitude of processes. Basically, what they do is today start off by having a very large mouth of water that is going to be used in order to pump water into the ground through a hole that is drilled in the ground in order to try to open up gas that is caught this shale rock. In shale rock. Now, its mostly water that goes into this, but there is a portion of it industry says its about. 5 which is composed of sand and other types of chemicals. Those chemicals have a multitude of purposes. The main purpose is to have whats calls a slickant and an emulsion, and it allows the water to be pumped in and to have sand be more or lessfied inside it so that when the water goes through, it can take advantage of whats currently in the earth and the sand will hold it open so that when they pull the water out of the ground, the methane gas will float back out of the hole. So what happens here is youve got a number of issues. First of all, a lot of water is being used usually between a million and fife million gallons its in many places so there is a problem of allocation of water and how much water is being used and having dropped the aquifer. The second issue is that youre mixing chemicals in the ground. The chemicals go into the ground can, some of them stay there and some of them come back up. The upward portion is called flowback water. When the water comes back up in addition to having the chemicals that were mixed this there, theres also things that were in the ground that combine with it. Some of that is Radioactive Material which is called naturally occurring Radioactive Material and other types of faults and brine. So the water that comes up is actually more concentrated and has a higher concentration of total dissolved solvents than what went into the ground. And then finally, they have to figure out what to do with this flowback be or produced water. The water is usually stored on the premises, sometimes in retention ponds, more recently in different types of tankers. Industry is trying to reduce the amount of fresh water thats being used, and so now they are recycling it. Recycling it is good because we use less water, but it creates more concentrated brine and produced waters which are sitting on various types of properties and are subject to different types of spills for accidents and weather events and the like. And the last portion is disposal. We have to figure out what to do with all of this produced water that has chemicals and has naturally occurring Radioactive Materials in it. Okay . So is thats sort of the process. And the difference is that when the industry is talking about fracking, tear talking about the portion where theyre shooting water in the ground and trying to break up the rock when the public and most journalists are talking about fracking, theyre talking about the entire shale gas extraction process which is the technical name. Next slide, please in okay. So this is to show you how much shale gas reserves there are around the country and in the world. And if you look at the slide on the left, it shows the United States. The areas in pink are all areas that have been identified as shale gas reserves. The area on the right is the mar sal plus shale. Not only is it quite large, its also quite close to where a predominance of gas be users are which make it enormously potentially economically advantageous. The slide on the right shows where basins are worldwide. Most of the shale gas is being produced right now in the United States. It is spreading worldwide, and so the question of water issues and the question of environmental and ecological issues are something that are going on to be an International Problem or becoming more so in terms of demonstrations as we move on. Next slide please . So this is showing the drilling activity x. What youll notice here, the slide on the left is showing drilling activity at the various shales throughout the United States. The yellow line is showing the mar salless shale. And what youll see there is in 2006 there is almost no wells, and currently we have the highest producing number of wells if the marcellus shale above everyone else. The movement from impercenting and exporting importing of natural gas. It came primarily from canada. Currently, we import almost no gas from canada. We are in the process of moving from a importer to an exporter, and the projections from the u. S. Eia show were going to be a major with exporter if we continue on this trend. Next slide. So the question comes down to regulation and where we are, and is it a wild west situation. The United States has very, very little federal regulation in terms of shale gas. A lot of the statutes have been exempted either because of the Energy Policy act of 2005 which exempted the clean water act and the Safe Drinking Water act, the oil and gas industry was exempted from the clean water act and Safe Drinking Water act willinglations. His forically, there was a lot of exemptions before, so we dont have a lot of federal oversight going on. Most of the activity is happening at the state level, and the states so in my neck of the woods the differences in new york state where we have a more to moratorium right now and in pennsylvania where we have a lot of drilling going on and its increasing exponentially. Next slide. Okay, so last slide is what going i dont think you can see that very well, i apologize. So its going to name various health and environmental concerns, and they come in a lot of areas. Water, obviously, is an exceedingly important question and the extent to which these are shale gas extraction has the ability to contaminate both groundwater surfaces and groundwater aquifers as well as fresh water sources. The extraction process has issues. When theres spill, it is not its quite possible and it happened quite often that there have been incidences of fresh water contamination. Because we have a groundwater contamination thats drilling through we have issues of groundwater. So with that, theres other issues with air and soil and others as well, but im going the turn it over to tom wilber who is a journalist and wrote this, under the surface, and hes going to take it from now. Next slide. Thank you, liz. And thanks for that great overview. Of the technical aspects. Im going to give you a brief overview of my perspective as a reporter. I work for the press and sun bulletin, thats a gannette newspaper in binghamton, new york. Ive worked there for several decades covering health and environmental stories as well as sometimes overlapping into agricultural issues. The greater bing mton area, broom county, is largely a rural flair upstate new york area in upstate new york. And Natural Gas Development for a long, long time in new york state was not much of a story at all. There has been some conventional development in western parts of the state, but its a very small part of the economy. And people wouldnt get too excited about it. Our newspaper readers at least, unless there was infrastructure, a pipeline occasionally going through. And in 2008 i got some information from some of my sources on the farm bureau that Something Different was happening. And by editor was on me to start covering this natural gas story. And we had pretty much thought that it was similar to the small and natural gas stories wed covered in the past until we got some information from some farmers who had banded together to form a coalition to leverage bargaining powers with the gas company. And a group of farmers, about 300 farmers, leased 50,000 acres in Delaware County to xto energy for 110 million. And xto energy was later bought by exxonmobil. And Delaware County, where this happened, was just on the west side of the or cats skills cat skills just outside of the new york city Drinking Water reservoirs. So this, all of a sudden, became not just another story, but our central story that dominated the local news in the Greater Binghamton area and a large part of upstate new york after 2008. So we woke up to the fact that this was, not just another story. And at the same time, i think communities throughout the rest of the country are waking up to this same fact and communities throughout the world. Ive been in touch with reporters from northern ireland, from england, from australia who have reached out to me to compare notes to find out what this story is about and how it affects their viewers and their readers. Huh does it affect me how does it affect me . Well, we all love cheap, Abundant Energy. We dont like higher prices and expensive energy. We may not like cheap, Abundant Energy so much when we get a really good look at where it comes from, if its the fossil fuel industry. And we like it even less if it spoils our water or depreciates our land. But our expectations about this energy and where were going from here has a lot to do with our political beliefs and our faith in industry. And im not going to go too far with that, but lets just say that the book explores some of that. And thats just for limits of time. Id really like to leave as much question and answer time as possible. So my view, i dont really have, after studying this intensely for, since at least 2008, i dont have a real view whether the risks of shale Gas Development outweigh the benefits, because there are a lot of benefits globally, and there are a lot of risks. But i feel very passionate about this, and that is protransparency. As a journalist, i feel that theres a need for transparency in these things that affect so much of the global population, let alone the national or local populations. And due to the various exemptions from the federal regulations that liz had mentioned, we really dont have a baseline to gauge the risks. We really dont know, theres no no industries are not mandated to disclose all the chemicals they use, for example. We dont have a good tracking system to figure out where the waste goes when it comes out of the ground. And this is not treated as Hazardous Waste even though some of the substances going in are hazardous sub standses. The waste coming out, because of the federal exemptions, is treated or disposed of under conventional means. So briefly ill just talk about three different aspects of this, the mechanical aspect liz already did a good overview on that and a little bit about policy, and then i want to talk a little bit about the personal aspects. Now, my book really weaves all this together, because it is a densely technical story. But it it is also a deeply persl story for a lot of people. So understanding the mechanics are important. As liz said, fracking does not equal drilling, okay . A lot of people think of this fracking is new, ask all of a sudden we have it. Frackings been around for a long time, and drillings been around for a long time. Whats new is the way were drilling and the source rock that were drilling from. This shale, these big shale mantles extend extensively under entire states unlike traditional shale or traditional natural gas wells that are geographically limited. So that is a game changer in itself in the scale of drilling. And fracking enables us to extract gas from these shale plays which are so extensive. Drilling, there are many documented problems associated with drilling that have been around for a long time. Methane migration is one. Thats when gas gets from one area into the next. It can cause explosions, it can cause methane in the water. So dont be confused when you hear about the dangers of fracking. Some of these are really the dangers of drilling. But fracking does enable shale Gas Development on an unpress kented precedented scale. Policy. Very Little National policy. States control the policy. And i think as a journalist one thing ive been very interested in is how communities might affect the policy. And this is a very interesting story because it has started in the town hall on many levels, and ill just tell you briefly about state where we dont have hydraulic fracturing. And now even though the marcellus shale exfunds under new york state. Extends under new york state. And the reason we dont have it right now isnt because of the Antifracking Movement, although that has contributed to things. The reason we dont have it in new york state is because in 2008 when the farmers got together and they landed this big deal with xto to, town boards and this was before fracking was a bad word. It was before josh fox came out with his movie and before there was a lot of awareness of it. And the local officials at town boards, these were planners, and they were roads people and emergency responders. They werent necessarily activists. They got together and said, well, lets wait a minute here. This is different. How is it different and how will it affect us . And all the communities around deposit, new york, where the lease was started saying well probably be next. The land men are here, how is this going the affect us . They packed town boards. The town reps got in touch with the state legislators. Long story short, this became a big story in the legislature and then governor paterson said, well, we better hold off on this and do a more thorough review, Environmental Review before we know whats going on. Five years later the Antifracking Movement has gaped national gained national prominence. They have raised a lot of questions about public health, and that has prolocked in the issue prolonged this issue. So this really started as a grassroots movement, and it didnt necessarily start with activists, although activists played an important role. And again, that story is told more thoroughly under the surface. And then i want to introduce the idea of home rule, okay this now states have jurisdiction over shale gas be, but communities are now challenging that, and several communities in upstate have said, wait a minute, the state cant just come into my community and site a shale gas well if they think, if our people here, our local people feel that violates zoning or causes various conflicts with our land use plan. So they challenged the state and the industry on that. Its worked its way up to the courts, and the courts in new york state have ruled that communities do, in fact, have home rule. They can stop drilling within a local area if they feel that it doesnt comply with the land use. And this is very important because as the industry points out, they with shale gas, they like to develop in big, large areas. They need predictability and uniformity. And if communities stop opting out here and there, it makes it more difficult for them to develop. So its a very important battle thats going on in new york state, and pennsylvania also has had counties or local municipalities successfully challenge the industry. So while we dont have National Policy on this or limited National Policy, theres developing policy on a community level. Thats very important. Now, the story in new york started with this awareness with the big deal with the ifs sit farmers got sit farmers, the 110 million deal. And all this chain of events that went with that ended up with the moratorium in new york state. Meanwhile, pennsylvania has gone full ahead with it, and sitting right on the border youve really had a case study of two different states and the ramifications in these two different states with the development. Personally, and thats where all this comes home, right . I mean, we can talk all these technical things and policy things all along, but how does it affect people . And if you could switch to slide 13, please . I think you might have to skip over one or two. There we go, right there. Thank you. When i was working at the paper in 2008 ask 2009 and this story was unfolding, a lot of the expectations were very high in pennsylvania. And a place in pennsylvania in particular, seamus and i were both reporting on this at the same time, and his book came out a little bit before mine. But theres an overlapping community aspect, and he tells the story through the first person and through a very personal account. Mines her of a journalistic account, but they involve some of the same characters. And it was so interesting when i read his book to see what i had reported on through his eyes and vice versa. But anyways, the idea of accidental activist, victoria schweitzer, the carters, nor ma finish norma is a plumbers widow. She lives in a sevenacre homestead in a trailer with several generations of kids. And the story became very big there when her water well exploded on new years day, 2009. And this triggered events where people in pennsylvania were saying, well, maybe this isnt what we thought it was. They had High Expectations even though they had leased their land cheap, unlike their counterparts in new york, and one thing led to the other, and the story unfolds. These folks got together. Victoria, who was a retired schoolteacher building her dream home with her husband jimmy in the rural community, called them accidental activists. They didnt want to get involved, but it was their battle against cabot and trying to hold the indus