[ASSURAS] Welcome back to "energyNOW!" We're digging deep into fracking and its potential link to contaminating our drinking water. We are back with Dave Yoxtheimer. He's a hydrogeologist at the Penn State Marcellus Center. John Quigley, the former Pennsylvania Secretary of Conservation and Natural Resources. Travis Windle, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, and from Berkeley, California, joining us, Peter Gleick, the president and the co-founder of the Pacific Institute.

What I'd like to do, gentlemen, is get into what are next steps. This country is still recovering from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In many people's minds, there are some parallels, so, John Quigley, let me begin with you. Should there be some kind of moratorium on, at least, new fracking be put in place?

[QUIGLEY] I'm not convinced that we need a moratorium, but I think the industry immediately must commit to 100% recycling of its wastewater, by a date certain, and I'm not talking years, I'm not talking months, I'm talking weeks. Commit to 100% recycling by a date certain. At the same time, we need to immediately institute testing of water supplies for radioactivity in particular and a commitment to full public disclosure of those results.

[YOXTHEIMER] We do have many companies in Pennsylvania that are reusing nearly 100% of their flowback water. So, we need the rest of the companies to follow the leaders in the industry and also recycle their wastewater as much as possible.

[WINDLE] We've increased the overall amount of reuse and recycle rate tenfold over the past year, and that's going to continue to move forward. And we're getting close to a 100% rate.

[ASSURAS] It's at 65%.

[WINDLE] Yeah.

[ASSURAS] 65% is not 100%.

[WINDLE] Sure.

[ASSURAS] 35% of the water remaining somewhere is potentially contaminated. So let me -- okay, go ahead.

[WINDLE] That rate is arguably higher with, over the past six months. You know, you take the 65 over the past year and a half. Well you look at the past 6 months and that rate keeps getting higher and higher, and we're committed to being on it 100%.

[ASSURAS] Dr. Gleick?

[GLEICK] We ought to slow down to the point where the environment is not the victim of this fracking process. We want the natural gas, but we also want a healthy environment and we want to protect public health.

[ASSURAS] But will the industry slow down? This is a lot of money for the industry -- 44,000 jobs were actually created in Pennsylvania.

[WINDLE] 88,000.

[ASSURAS] Doubled already?

[WINDLE] Since 2005.

[QUIGLEY] I think some of the industry claims are a little inflated.

[WINDLE] Those are from Penn State experts.

[QUIGLEY] What I will say is, too often, the industry's response to any of these questions has been, "Trust us, we know what we're doing" -- we can't. This is a basic function of government, to protect public health and, I think, the environment, which go hand in hand.

[ASSURAS] But a major part of the investigation by The New York Times is, came up with, who can we trust in this situation? Lax monitoring, lax regulations. The industry being able to monitor and police itself and its own reporting. Who's at fault here?

[GLEICK] The industry has to do a better job, no doubt about it. But our state regulatory agencies and the federal regulatory agencies also have a critically important job to do. This isn't the time to be weakening the EPA, or weakening our state environmental agencies. And yet that's the risk. We need clear oversight of environmental and health protections.

[ASSURAS] How can there be agreement between the environmentalists and the industry?

[WINDLE] Overwhelmingly, fracturing fluids used in the Marcellus are more than 99.5% water and sand.

[ASSURAS] And what's in that .5% number?

[WINDLE] These are common additives. We're talking about an emulsifier to propense bacteria killers -- things that attack bacteria in the well bore. So these are common things you can find --

[ASSURAS] Something we'd drink?

[WINDLE] No, we're not suggesting that. No one suggested that.

[YOXTHEIMER] These are things you can typically find in your garage or under your sink. Would you drink Drano? Absolutely not. But people use it, and it goes down their drain and goes out, ultimately, into a river.

[ASSURAS] Dr. Gleick, just for a second, is there such a thing as safe fracking in your mind?

[GLEICK] The problem is, there are a lot of unknowns here about what's being put into groundwater, whether it's into our groundwater or not or if it's separate from our groundwater, about the wastewater discharge. We don't know enough to say that we're doing it safely. And there are hints that we're not doing it safely.

[ASSURAS] Let me ask the question of each of the gentlemen here.

[WINDLE] In Pennsylvania, we work closely with the Department of Environmental Protection to enhance the current well-casing standards, which ensure that hydrocarbons, natural gas, and the fluids used in fracturing -- made up of 99.5% water and sand -- cannot in any way communicate with freshwater aquifers.

[ASSURAS] I know that we could keep discussing the investigations and these issues over health, but I do want to get to a final question. Dr. Gleick, I'll begin with you, I think, and that is, whether natural gas, do you see it as a key, or the key to solving the energy problems of this country?

[GLEICK] Natural gas, in my opinion, is a transition fuel. Natural gas is much better than coal. It burns more cleanly. It produces far less greenhouse gases. It's better than imported oil, but in the long run, we want to get off of carbon-based fuel.

[ASSURAS] Is it simply a transition fuel till we get to better?

[QUIGLEY] I think it is a transition fuel. I think we need to transition as quickly as possible, but you have to keep in mind some basic facts. Coal sickens and kills people. One out of six women of childbearing age in this country has elevated levels of mercury in her blood because of burning coal, and that retards fetal development. We have thousands of people that die over the space of a decade in southwestern Pennsylvania associated with air pollution resulting from the burning of coal.

[WINDLE] We have a hundred years' supply in the United States of clean-burning natural gas, and it's incumbent upon us as a nation, as a region in Pennsylvania, to leverage that fuel in a way that benefits the nation, makes us stronger economically in the global marketplace.

[YOXTHEIMER] I think we have an opportunity of a lifetime here to really change the way we create energy. We need power; it's just a fact of life.

[ASSURAS] Gentlemen, all, thank you for joining us. Peter Gleick as well in California. Thank you so much.