Thalia Assuras: You really painted an alarming picture about the safety hazards connected to fracking, hazards that one would have thought were known. Are you talking about a catch up game here?

Ian Urbina: I think the monitoring issue is pretty serious. I think what we've highlighted was the level of contaminants that were coming from the wells are higher than previously known, and the further you go down the stream from where those contaminants end up, the less there's proper tracking of it and that's I think the most serious point the story made.

Thalia Assuras: Well, that raises two questions actually. One, are drilling companies trying to get away with something, and two, has the government just missed the picture and the monitoring services missed what's really going on or kept it secret?

Ian Urbina: I don't think either is the case. I don't think companies are trying to get away with something. I think the companies are doing what they do, which is they drill and they try to extract natural gas. I think that the boom is unfolding. The natural gas boom is unfolding so fast that it's been a struggle for regulators to keep up. And in that process of trying to keep up, they haven't necessarily kept track of all the specific hazards that exist, and this is one such example.

Thalia Assuras: But you are placing blame at the feet of government because you do say, for example, that several reports were not released to the public or things weren't done, for example, by the EPA.

Ian Urbina: Yeah, I do think that -- I don't know about blame. I do think that there has been less oversight than probably should be exerted both on the federal and the state level. I think that's what the reporting revealed, and I hope that now that we have a better sense of some of these issues, that'll change.

Thalia Assuras: Where did this actually start? Did it start in the George W. Bush era with limited restrictions or regulations on drilling?

Ian Urbina: Well, I think that it's a long story. So I think that part of what's at issue here is this is an industry that is exempt from a lot of, certainly not all, federal laws and a lot of the oversights left to the states, and the states are -- in Pennsylvania, for example, are in some ways doing a good job but in other ways, they are struggling to keep up, and I think that's a big burden to put on state regulators.

Thalia Assuras: Let's stick with Pennsylvania because you have ruffled feathers already. The former head of the protection agency within the Government of Pennsylvania basically said that, ìIan Urbina is saying all this stuff. He didn't quote me -- well, he quoted me but he didn't talk to me. He's talking about a lack of oversight, a significant oversight and yet Pennsylvania has increased or increased its staff over the last couple of years by at least double,î so he's calling you in on your facts.

Ian Urbina: Well again, the story talks about his -- some of his accomplishments, including the increase in staff size, and I think he's right in the sense that there were significant improvements under his administration. So relative to where they were before he came in office, there have been great strides. Relative to where they may need to be, relative to the responsibility that's in front of them considering the expansion of drilling, they have a ways to go. And in particular, the problem that we highlighted concerning radioactivity is one area where regulation was particularly lax.

Thalia Assuras: So are you saying that the amount of drilling, the expansion should slow down until regulators catch up?

Ian Urbina: You know, I'm not prescribing. It's not my job to prescribe. I'm describing what I've seen and I think what our reporting showed was that right now, regulators are not keeping pace. And if proper oversight is going to be exerted in all areas, including such things as the radioactivity issue, then regulators will have to catch up and get in front of the expansion.

Thalia Assuras: I'm curious. You spent at least six months delving into this, investigating this. What was the most surprising thing you found out? Is it this issue of regulation?

Ian Urbina: No. I think the most surprising thing -- there were two. One was some of the levels of radioactivity that were showing up in the wastewater, they were much higher than I expected. Number two was the lack of monitoring, especially as you look at the drinking water intake systems and the fact that they haven't, for the most part, tested for this radioactivity in two, sometimes three, sometimes more years.

Thalia Assuras: So are you warning essentially the public? Do you see this as a story warning the public as to what's going on, that you're worried about people's health, people who live near these drilling sites?

00:05:08

Ian Urbina: I think I would say I'm warning not about their health but about the lack of monitoring. I think that the piece says that the only way we can be sure about people's health is by proper monitoring, and that needs to occur. Beyond that, I don't know what the monitoring will find.

Thalia Assuras: You're saying monitoring as opposed to regulating or increased regulation?

Ian Urbina: No, I think monitoring as part of regulation. I think that if you're going to regulate an industry, you're going to impose certain rules on them and one of those rules might be the frequency of how often -- the frequency of checking for certain hazards like radioactivity. Right now, that frequency is low at the sewage treatment plants or at the drinking water intake stations. It seems like that maybe should increase if this type of waste is going to be passed through.

Thalia Assuras: Well, this is an industry, as you said yourself, that that is expanding. If there's more monitoring, more regulating, how does that throw maybe a fly or does it throw a fly in the ointment when it comes to the country dealing with its energy problems with a solution that seems to, even environmentalists, many environmentalist, is a really good, clean type of energy?

Ian Urbina: I think that the only way we can embrace, as a country, natural gas is safely. And if there's not sufficient regulation of it, then eventually that's going to catch up with the boom and we're going to take a step backwards.

Thalia Assuras: Catch up or slow it down? That seems to be the problem or the challenge to the nation continuously at least from the political realm that we've got to solve our problems.

Ian Urbina: Right. You don't want to create safety hazards in the course of trying to solve our energy problems, so there is an ongoing balancing act, as you point out, between increasing domestic energy production and doing so safely.

Thalia Assuras: So what's next in your reporting?

Ian Urbina: We have a story out now for tomorrow's paper on recycling of wastewater, which is a solution to some of their problems, some of the industry's problems with how much waste they're producing. But it takes a look at how much waste water is being cut back by recycling and just raises some questions about that. And then, later in the week, we're going to take a look at the EPA and to what role federal regulators have been watching this drilling boom unfold.

Thalia Assuras: The EPA, from your reporting, seems to have fallen asleep at the switch and kept some things secret.

Ian Urbina: I think the EPA is an agency with a lot of different things going within it. And so, when you look at the EPA and what they've done in Texas, they're actually on the natural gas drilling and trying to regulate it. They've been very aggressive. When you look at what the EPA has done, say in Pennsylvania, they have been much less aggressive and I think that's what the next story will focus on.

Thalia Assuras: And you spent six months doing this, but what actually led you to look into this area in the first place?

Ian Urbina: The Gulf spill actually. One question that came out of the Gulf spill was we've learned a lot about what offshore regulation looks like, offshore drilling regulations and some problems that clearly existed in that realm, problems with federal regulation, what does onshore drilling looked like and are there any areas where there may be concerns. And so, when we asked that question, the first place we looked was Pennsylvania because it's a place where there are some of that most -- the sharpest increase in drilling, gas drillings, and so we began digging around on the topic.

Thalia Assuras: Did you just go, ìI don't believe this.î I mean, was there a huge moment or a moment when you said, ìOh!î

Ian Urbina: There wasn't. It's less dramatic but I think I was surprised by the wastewater and what was in it. I wasn't surprised to find that regulation in the state in many ways is strong, but in the ways that we highlighted in the story still is weak.

Thalia Assuras: You know there are a lot of people already who are angry at you, including the Marcellus shale folks and people from Pennsylvania. Former government people were saying, ìHe didn't get all those facts straight and he's making us look bad, and we really care and have been regulating, working hard at this.î

Ian Urbina: Yeah. Again, as I said before, I think facts -- the accuracy of what's in the story is 100%. Whether we complemented the level of oversight enough is something that we've been criticized for and highlighted the accomplishments of the last administration enough on regulation.

00:10:23

That's a fair point for them to raise, but we are looking for places where they could improve less than for places where they'd already done a good job.

Thalia Assuras: You're not saying stop until the regulations are in place?

Ian Urbina: You know, I'm not in the business of offering suggestions as to what they should do. My reporting didn't indicate that the threat was so severe that all drillings should stop. My reporting indicated that there are some real blind spots in this drilling process and that there need to be stepped up enforcements in those areas.

Thalia Assuras: What do you see is happening next at least in the political realm?

Ian Urbina: Well, I mean from what I can tell, there's already a movement afoot on the hill to pass legislation to step up monitoring and to require more frequent monitoring at drinking water intake stations and in sewage treatment plants.

Thalia Assuras: A bitter felt fight coming?

Ian Urbina: On that issue? Perhaps, perhaps for the reasons you've cited. There will be some lawmakers who won't want to slow down industry with further regulation, and there will be others who are worried about the hazards and more monitoring.

Thalia Assuras: Who's going to win?

Ian Urbina: I don't know. I don't know.

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