Day 1, Part 2: Carter Road


When we pulled onto Carter Road, we saw DEP testing water at the first house. I walked up to the DEP and asked them if I could photograph them testing the water. They told me I had to ask the landowner who was now walking towards me. I explained to the owner that I was a RIT student doing a photography project on hydrofracking and would like to take pictures. He asked to see my ID and when I showed him he told me it would be fine, as long as I didn’t include his name or any pictures of his house. He then began to explain how his water was a “little contaminated” and he was mad at his neighbors for making a fuss because he had sold his house, but they buyers back out (..probably because they had no drinking water..). As I began getting my camera gear together I saw him talking to the DEP. Seconds later, he walked back up to me and told me he had changed his mind and didn’t want me to photograph.

We were starting to get a little discouraged. We decided we may as well go all out, so we started to go door to door. This is the first door we knocked on.. the house of Victoria Hubert.

Victoria Hubert has lived in her house in Dimock for 20 years. Cabot Oil and Gas Company began leasing land for drilling in Dimock in 2006. Cabot paid her to put a well near her house. Because she could use some extra money and they told her there were no risks, she let them put a well near her property. Soon after the drilling began, however, her water became contaminated. It has been 4 years since she has had water. She can’t use her tap water for drinking, cooking, showering, or doing laundry. She drives twenty miles to the nearest laundromat when she needs to wash her family’s clothes.  Cabot Oil and Gas Company fills a tank with water in front of her house once a week with 300 gallons of water for herself, her daughter, and her husband. The average American used 80-100 gallons of water per day.

The next house we went to was the house of Patricia Farnelli.

Pat’s water is contaminated and has been tested positive for chemicals such as lead, arsenic, and barium, but she is not getting water delivered to her house. Although we visited with Pat on a school day, all four of her kids were home sick. She said they have been sick for three months, vomiting and with diarrhea. When Pat first found out her water was contaminated, she began to boil all the water they used. However, she quickly found out that boiling the water just makes it worse. Every week Pat goes grocery shopping, she fills one cart up with groceries and another one up with bottled water. She has to pay for all the water herself, and it gets very expensive. They use bottled water for almost everything: cooking, drinking, brushing their teeth. However, the family still has to shower in the contaminated water. Her eighteen year old daughter has red bumps and rashes all over her arms from showering in the water. Other families I talked with explained the same thing happening to their children who were showering in the water.

Pat showed us the well behind her house where they used to get their water, which is now contaminated.

Pat also showed us the pump that the gas and oil company told her she had to take the nozzle off of, or else so much methane would build up that her house could explode.

We ended our day at Craig and Julie Sautner’s house. The Sautner’s are some of the nicest, most inspiring people I have met. They are one of four families on Carter Road who the gas companies have admitted to contaminating their water. They are very involved in taking action against these gas companies and are spreading the word of the dangers of hydrofracking to people all over the world. Despite working six days a week, Craig and Julie Sautner make time to meet with reporters every night. Reporters from National Geographic, Time Magazine, CNN, Fox News, and people as far away as Japan, New Zealand, and France have been to the Sautners interviewing them about their experiences with hydrofracking.

The Sautner’s water has been tested positive for arsenic, methoxyethanol and DEHP which is a platicizer. Every morning, a water truck drives from two and a half hours away to fill up a tank outside of their house with water.

Julie shows us the water test summary taken from Cabot that morning. Their water tested over the safe limit for arsenic. Their neighbor’s were over four times over the safe limit.

Craig Saunter shines a flashlight through a water sample taken on January 28, 2012 to show the particles in the water.

The Sautner’s were kind enough to let us take home a sample of their water. When you shook it, you could see the particles swirling around. We spent a lot of time with the Sautner’s asking them questions and hearing their story. When we talked about the town and the different signs we saw, they explained to us the hostility going on in their community because of the drilling. The Sautner’s get harassed when they go into town. The families whose water has not been contaminated are upset with the families who are complaining about their poisoned water. Because of the Sautner’s and the other families on Carter Road, hydrofracking has been banned for a nine square mile radius for the past year and a half. The families who have not been effected are missing out on money that they could be getting from the gas company to drill on their properties. It has pitted neighbor against neighbor. Although drilling is not currently going on in Dimock at least for now, these family’s water supplies are still contaminated.

Although the Sautners desperately want to move, they are unable to. Craig has been offered a job in Tennessee, but cannot take it because they cannot sell their house (because they don’t have drinking water) and cannot afford two mortgages. “We are trapped in our own house,” they said.

It was creeping to around 10 PM and Ellie and I were exhausted from a long, emotional day. The Sautners asked where we were staying and warned us that all the hotels and motels in the area have been rented out from people coming in to frack. Although people in favor of hydrofracking claim it brings jobs to towns, only about 10% of the jobs are given to locals, the rest are workers that are brought in. Ellie and I had to drive to Binghamton, New York which was an hour away to get a hotel room. We were speechless after leaving the town of Dimock.

Outside of our hotel room was this billboard.. I felt like throwing up.

(Source: laurensphotojournal)