Focus on Focus Earth: Oh, That Dirty Water

First, Pennsylvania fined Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. $56,000 for 3 separate spills in the small rural town of Dimock. Then Cabot was fined $120,000 by the Department of Environmental Protection for allowing natural gas to contaminate 13 water wells in Susquehanna County. Now, Cabot is being sued by Dimock residents, who claim the company's natural gas operations have leached toxic chemicals into their water wells, caused sickness, and reduced property values.

Though the contamination probably started much earlier, the town entered the limelight back in January, when a well near a Cabot operation exploded and prompted an investigation. It's not a new controversy: Cabot uses hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, to access the underground gas reserves, a process that is highly unregulated and which many say causes serious health problems, including rare forms of cancer.

Like just about everyone else in the industry, Cabot denies that its operations cause harm to the environment or to the health of nearby residents, while many environmentalists and concerned citizens are adamant that the drilling process and the chemicals involved are highly toxic and should be regulated, if not eliminated altogether. So Dimock residents are fighting back. They have registered complaints of neurological, gastrointestinal and dermatological symptoms, and blood test results showing heavy metal exposure, yet have only gotten inadequate responses from both their elected officials and the state environmental protection agency. So they've taken the matter into their own hands. "Lawyers were the last thing I wanted," said Victoria Switzer, one plaintiff who joined the suit. "We are not greedy people, we just want some justice."

Here's hoping for a victory against Cabot and for the residents of Dimock—and for clean water everywhere.

Watch the Focus Earth Episode: Environmental Justice