the Lower Hutt grandma running an evil trade in humanity. Some people consider you a monster. How do you answer that? She ran a black market in babies. She's a horrible lady. She had control of my mind. Carla Chambers ` the Lower Hutt kingpin... It's about the most vile thing you could imagine. ...in an illicit international baby trade. Money. Money. Only money. It even shocked the FBI. It was very ugly. Whoa! Jesus Christ! Also tonight, big oil... It's bullying, it's aggressive and it gets its way. ...and the fracking frenzy... Once you get a taste of that money, it's addictive. ...fuelling the American energy dream. They're here to rape this land, make as much money as they can, and get the hell out of here. Fracking. For many, the new dirty word. Captions by Anne Langford. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright TVNZ Access Services 2012 Kia ora, I'm Miriama Kamo. Tonight, an international black market in babies. And the unlikely kingpin of this criminal operation? A 52-year-old Lower Hutt nurse and grandma. Carla Chambers smuggled hundreds of Caucasian babies into the United States, inside surrogate mothers. The babies were made in a lab in the Ukraine and sold for as much as $180,000 each. Sunday got alongside the FBI investigation that brought her to justice and saw her off to jail. Here's Phil Vine in San Diego. We're over here to meet a woman. It's a reunion of sorts, hoping to cross paths with her at the courthouse ` San Diego, California. A NZer. A grandmother from the Hutt Valley. A very evil person. She's a horrible lady. She had control of my mind. A woman who some here would consider a monster; a kingpin in a global crime ring. To know that I was a part of something like that makes me sick. It's about the most vile thing you can imagine. Manufacturing and selling blonde, blue-eyed Caucasian babies. A multimillion-dollar operation cracked by the FBI. The Feds let Sunday inside their startling investigation. Well, it kind of knocks you back a couple of steps. It kind of crosses over into the realm of brave new world or a science-fiction novel. Something NZ police might have stopped in its infancy 12 years ago when our cameras first encountered Carla Chambers. Yeah, they had a wonderful opportunity to put an end to this before it began. Outside the San Diego court, there's lots of other people waiting for her too ` local and national media, and her victims. We're the only ones here from NZ. No one else seems to have made the Kiwi connection. Stateside, this case has generated a lot of interest and a lot of outrage,... In Crime & Punishment, black-market babies... REPORTER: Carla Chambers... REPORTER: They were exploiting a booming market for surrogacy. ...shocking some of the FBI's most seasoned agents. It was very ugly. Here's how it worked. Carla Chambers would recruit young American surrogates, women willing to carry babies, flying them to a clinic in the Ukraine, implanting them with specially made Caucasian embryos. Using and exploiting women to create designer children for profit. It's monstrous. Surrogates like Kim, returning pregnant to the US with white unborn babies ready to be sold to the highest bidder. Anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 for these babies. What was motivating her? > What was motivating her? > Money, money. Only money. Kim and Heather's motivation was to transform the lives of people without kids. Like, I have five children of my own, and I could not imagine my life without my children. This was a dream of mine to become a surrogate and bless a childless couple. Surrogates in the US belong to a close-knit online community. It's almost like a sisterhood. That's where NZer Carla Chambers, a surrogate herself, recruited her mules for her baby-trafficking operation. She would reach out to them through back channels, on these message boards, to say that she was operating her own surrogacy programme. This man's a specialist reproductive lawyer ` the attorney Elton John used for his surrogate child. Andy Vorzimer's suspicions launched this investigation. This was intentionally creating children for sale. It was human trafficking. He says Carla's surrogates were shown an album full of childless couples waiting to be helped. And they were told, 'While we can't introduce you to your current couple, 'it's one of these families that are in this book.' And then Carla would make an unusual offer,... She was seeking new surrogates for an eastern Europe transfer. ...asking them to go to an IVF clinic in the Ukraine. Carla Chambers would accompany them to the Ukraine ` two, three, four women at a time. Kim and Heather left the US in April 2010, meeting her in L'viv, Ukraine. An unregulated clinic there would give Carla a free hand in making designer babies. Looking back now, I can't believe that I ever did it. It's almost as if I had tunnel vision. You know, it was kinda scary. And very quick. Two days in the Ukraine, implanted with embryos at the Intersono Clinic. I went first. Heather went second. It was a little nerve-racking. You know, we were in a Third World country getting a medical procedure. But both implantations appeared to go smoothly. They were told one of the reasons they had to go to the Ukraine was the medical costs were far cheaper there than in the United States. But the real reason is far more sinister. The Ukrainian clinic allowed Carla Chambers to select sperm and eggs with certain Caucasian characteristics, making what she called superembryos. They were created specifically to be sold. Carla was actually hand-picking the egg donors and the sperm donors, and she was mixing them to create almost a perfect baby. Caucasian, blonde hair, blue-eyed children. Beautiful babies. And they are beautiful. That's frightening. That's frightening. It is. In the cultural melting pot of the United States, Carla Chambers figured pure-bred healthy white babies would attract a premium. Caucasian babies are very highly desired. To find a Caucasian child for adoption, a baby here in the United States, is very very difficult. They knew there was a void there and they tried to fill that void by creating these pregnancies. It makes me feel shameful that I'm even sitting here today, across from you, finding myself in this situation. I was stunned. I mean, my initial reaction was, 'There's no possible way anyone could get away with this,' only to learn later that this had been ongoing for close to a decade. It` I was dumbfounded. And so were we when we discovered Carla Chambers' history. Here she is in Lower Hutt in 1998, aged 38. Now 52. 14 years ago, TVNZ's Assignment programme featured her activities. 'Selling babies to order.' She had the sperm there ready. Sperm purchased off Kiwi men,... All we were told to do was to stick it between our legs and go and meet her. ...inseminating all these women. Where did you go for the insemination? > Where did you go for the insemination? > Carla's home. On the couch. Carla still owns this house in the Hutt. She said to me that this is her business. She's running it as a business. The business? Selling babies to childless couples in the US. I can tell you a bit about them, if you are interested, OK. They are 41 and 40. He's an attorney with his own practice. They've been married for 13 years. We filled Heather in on Carla's background. It's nasty. It's nasty that this woman,... just the thing that she was doing. She was actually inseminating these women by hand-carrying this sperm in a... It's just disgusting, just all of it. Just... Carla was investigated by police back then, but seemingly it wasn't a priority. We've got a whole lot of other investigations which could be termed far more serious. I know the police have got no case. This was reported, but there's not any case. There was, but nothing serious. In 2000, Carla Chambers was charged with fraud relating to a chemist prescription and a post-office box, getting 200 hours of community service. Yeah. They had a wonderful opportunity to put an end to this before it began, but it wasn't even a slap on the wrist. How do you respond to that? Next, face to face with the baby trafficker. What about the dead babies? It was a soul, you know. I felt him move inside of me and kick, and, you know... It was a pretty incredible story. The FBI gave Sunday remarkable access. These children were being created to form a supply from which the demand would be later identified and the desire met. So it was very, um... It was very ugly, but, ultimately, it was very disturbing. And no one was more disturbed than the surrogates, Heather and Kim, back from the clinic in Ukraine, halfway through their pregnancy. We found out at 18 weeks, on a Monday, that the FBI was involved. And I started shaking. I had to go outside. And I said, 'Now, tell me that again.' I just... I couldn't even comprehend it. The book of intended parents was a fake. Every last bit of that was false. It did not exist. And then as we got deeper and deeper into it, we just found there was just lies upon lies upon lies. I was scared. I was scared to death. What about the baby? What about the baby? What about the baby? I-I didn't, at that point in time, I didn't know what I was gonna do. Over the next seven months, as Carla Chambers went about her business, here at the FBI, special agents were gathering evidence, documentation, interviews with surrogates and taped conversations, wiretaps using surrogates to collect vital information. What makes you think you can get away with that? You had no idea that you were going to be part of a criminal ring? You had no idea that you were going to be part of a criminal ring? Never. No, no. I had no idea. I had no idea they were even selling the babies. Five days after the FBI started investigating, Kim started bleeding heavily and collapsed. She delivered a dead baby. A little boy. He had 10 fingers and 10 toes, and he was pretty perfect. (CRIES) It was pretty sad. You go into something wanting to help a couple out to have a child, and number one, there wasn't parents. I was his mother. There was nobody else to claim him but me. When I emailed her, telling her of what had happened, she said, 'Oh, I'm so sorry for you. 'So sorry for your loss. Can you please send me proof of your foetal demise?' It was cold. It was cold and abrasive. You know, there was... There was no sorrow, no compassion on her end towards me at all. It was strictly business. A business that Carla Chambers took an active part in. She was routinely going to the Ukraine and undergoing IVF transfers herself. Carla is believed to have given birth to eight children, which she on sold. Her last in 2010, aged 51. Many of these Ukrainian black-market babies were born here at this private hospital, including the ones that Carla Chambers herself delivered, as these FBI surveillance photos in the car park clearly show. They were taken just after she handed her last baby to her latest customers. They were created specifically to be sold. They were created specifically to be sold. You had the cash, you got the baby. That's exactly right. It went to the highest bidder. It was... It was eBay for babies. So she was making human life on spec? Yes. Was there potential to make much money? Yes. Yes, there was the potential to make a lot of money. $180,000. That's what Taylor Stein, daughter of famous rock promoter Rick Stein, reportedly paid for her Ukrainian baby. What did you make of that price for a baby? Well, I thought it was astronomical. But... < Do you have kids? I do have. I have a child and I have another one on the way, thank you very much. Um, I thought that price was very high. Intended parents were fooled by a lie, supported by false court documents, that the original childless couple for the baby had pulled out. They said, 'We have this poor abandoned surrogate. 'We have a child that's been abandoned by their original intended parents. 'Do you want to step in and basically rescue this baby and the surrogate?' So this childless couple could feel as if they were helping someone out? So this childless couple could feel as if they were helping someone out? Absolutely. And that was the hook. It hooked this couple. I had cervical cancer several years ago, so am unable to carry a child. When they showed an interest in Carla Chambers' operation, money was demanded immediately. They had asked us to wire $35,000. Alecia hesitated. The pressure went on. 'If you don't wanna do this, we have plenty of other people lined up to do this.' 'Just wire the money. Are you crazy? This is a baby. And then we'll move to the contract phase.' The money flows quickly because it's, like I said, this godsend comes to them. 'We can't pass it up. Finally, our prayers have been answered.' Luckily, Alecia smelt a rat and pulled out. It's disgusting to me that people can manufacture babies like they manufacture cars, and you can special-order a baby like you would special-order a car. You were nearly a customer for that car? I` I agree with that statement, however, I would never enter into a situation like that without having any contracts or references. I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but you came that close... I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but you came that close... Yeah. ...to feeding this criminal enterprise. Right, and... and it's... it's emotionally charged. They preyed on people's emotions. Some people might see it as a relatively victimless crime. I don't know what they're looking at. I don't know how you could look at these babies and say that they're not victims. The FBI investigated a sample of 12 babies manufactured in the Ukraine, saying they all ended up in happy, loving homes, but no one knows exactly how many lives were created. How many babies are we talking about? > Based upon anecdotal evidence that we have, Carla Chambers was taking anywhere from two to four women to the Ukraine every two to three months. Even if you just look at a 50% success rate, theoretically, potentially, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 to 250 children could have been born over that time frame. That's outrageous. There were no checks and balances. Were they screening the intended parents for...? I mean, were they criminals? There are people out there who want children for less than savoury reasons. Absolutely. And we do not know, ultimately, where all of these children were placed, and whether or not they were placed in appropriate and loving homes. We do not know. And even those in good homes will never know where they came from. Apparently, the Ukrainian clinic has inaccurate records. Anything that was provided, that we are aware of, to any IPs during the course of the this investigation, we cannot in any way verify. We cannot vouch for it. We cannot assure its accuracy. That leaves the parents and the children in a terrible state. That leaves the parents and the children in a terrible state. It surely does. < So, just cast adrift. < So, just cast adrift. It's almost robbing someone of their basic identity. I don't even know that Carla knows where they came from. Or how they're related. These were genetic siblings of each other. These poor children. Not only were their birth stories corrupted and tainted by the whole process, but they have genetic brothers and sisters out there that they may never know. The babies created by Carla Chambers ` how do you think they will be affected? I don't know. I think a lot depends on whether their parents will disclose to them the origins of their birth. Some of the children are now 6, 7, 8, 9 years old. Whether or not they're aware of what has taken place, I do not know. The whole story's sad. It's just the whole story's really sad. Totally sad. Unimaginable, in fact. But there's a heart-warming outcome. That's after Carla Chambers' interrogation on the steps of the San Diego courthouse. Some people consider you a monster. How do you answer that? Wow, that's tough. Wow, that's tough. It is tough, but that's what people think. I haven't seen many people like that. You were manufacturing babies to sell to the highest bidder. How do you respond to that? Welcome back. Carla Chambers exploited surrogates and preyed on vulnerable childless couples. Now the Kiwi baby trafficker dodges questions from Sunday on the steps of the courthouse in San Diego before answering to the judge. The FBI arrested Carla Chambers at this house in Las Vegas in the early hours of the morning. And a startling fact emerged. The whole operation was still being run out of NZ. We were on NZ time when she was calling, when she was emailing. That's actually where she flew from when she flew to L'viv in April 2010. I know that's where she flew back to. This operation was based out of NZ? This operation was based out of NZ? That's where she was operating from. Yes. Carla Chambers still owns this house in Lower Hutt where she started her baby business almost two decades ago. She's pleaded guilty to conspiring to engage in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity. And depending on the judge's attitude to this modern crime, she could spend up to five years in a federal penitentiary. Kim waits to confront her with a picture of her dead baby. She and Alecia have to give impact statements. I am scared. I'm petrified. I have no idea how I'm going to react facing Carla again. Here she comes. Carla Chambers, I'm from the Sunday programme in NZ. We'd like to give you the opportunity to answer some questions. Would you answer some questions, please. Some people consider you a monster. Would you look at your surrogate? Some people consider you a monster. How do you answer that? Wow, that's tough. Wow, that's tough. Yes, it is tough. Why would you say something like that? Why would you say something like that? Well, that's what people think. Well, I haven't seen many people like that. Well, I haven't seen many people like that. Yes, well,... Carla,... We'll make a statement afterwards. ...you were manufacturing white babies to sell to the highest bidder. How do you respond to that? That is human trafficking. How do you respond to that? What about the genetic information for those babies? What about the dead babies? 'And she didn't say much more in court.' Inside, the surrogates told the judge that Carla Chambers was evil and conniving, a mastermind manipulator. They said that she had escaped punishment in NZ, and if he didn't punish her properly, she would do it again. Carla Chambers simply told the court she was sorry for the way it had turned out. Carla is a joke. There was no thought that went into it. She just said, 'I'm sorry.' After nearly 14 years of selling babies, Carla Chambers has finally been stopped in her tracks. She'll serve five months in jail, then seven on home detention. I am going to get on the plane with joy in my heart. I believe the judge imposed a fair sentence. He imposed a sentence in accordance with the law. Though the law in both our countries says trafficking in unborn babies isn't strictly illegal. Right. There's no law. There's no law on point to address what she was doing, so we make do with the laws that we have in place. We're in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley. But attorney Andrew Vorzimer still believes NZ police missed an opportunity. That she was engaging in this adoption scandal out of NZ; it's appalling to me that there was nothing more the NZ authorities could do other than to slap her on the wrist and ask her not to do it again. We asked NZ Police for an interview about Carla Chambers. They declined saying they couldn't contact anyone who had been involved with the case. We asked for the police file. They said that it had most likely been destroyed in accordance with standard procedure. CHILD SQUEALS > These two, though, have created their own happy ending. Is that her bed, or her bed? Is that her bed, or her bed? No, that's hers. They're looking at pictures of this little one ` the baby girl Heather brought home from the Ukraine. Everything happens for a reason, and she came to us for a reason. During the investigation, something amazing happened. Heather decided that her new friend would be the one to be her daughter's mother. Well, Alecia was there in the delivery room. I had a C-section. To watch Alecia see her baby girl, her first baby girl, for the first time, that is priceless. I just held her up, and I took her over to Heather, and I said, 'You did so good. Look at how beautiful she is.' And it was just amazing, absolutely amazing. As for Carla Chambers, might she get back into the baby-trafficking business again? If this is your way of asking me if I think my path's going to cross again with Carla Chambers, I think the odds are pretty high. I don't think she knows any other way to make a living, quite frankly. The judge told Chambers she'd robbed everyone of their dignity, not least the children who'll never know their biological parents. Up next, 'fracking'. No, I'm not swearing, but for many it's rapidly becoming a dirty word. People started to realise, 'My water is turning black.' 'My water is bubbling.' 'Something smells funny.' 'My kids are getting sick.' Then they discover, lo and behold, they can light their water on fire right out of their tap. Whoa! Jesus Christ! Fracking. Now there's a word that's pushing buttons across America. Oil and gas rigs are sprouting up right next to supermarkets, schools and homes, and they're causing a right old stink. That's because of a controversial drilling process called 'fracking'. President Obama thinks it's great. It's dramatically cut America's dependence on foreign oil. But critics say it's catastrophic for public health and the environment. Either way, fracking's rapidly becoming a dirty word. HORN BLASTS It's not bigger than Texas, it is Texas ` downtown Dallas, and that means the new neighbour moving into the suburbs around here may well be a drilling rig. I know people who tried everything they possibly could, and they still have drilling right next to their houses, and they're very unhappy about it. You don't have to travel far to witness a collision between community and commerce, family and industry. To me it just doesn't make sense to put a heavy industrial process right next to somebody's house. This is Southlake ` a prosperous community on the outskirts of Dallas; a place where usually money talks. But right now the talk's all about the riches of the Barnett shale field underneath suburbs like Southlake. There are so many things we don't know about this process, and that's what really became most frightening is the things that are being generated during the fracking process we know have the potential to cause harm. Things like naphthene and benzene, which we know are linked to leukaemia; we know are linked to cancers and other types of neurological disorders. The emergency-room doctor and his band of suburban activists often gather here at the local Mexican restaurant with their children to discuss the perils of a process they may not have even heard of a few years ago, even in oil-savvy Texas ` fracking. And so this is where they were going to put it, yeah? And so this is where they were going to put it, yeah? Correct. Yeah. Just past that second fence line there. It would've been about 1600ft to 1700ft from my front door, and within about 1100ft of some of my neighbours. Neighbours like Diane Harris and her family. I'm not going to put a price tag on the health and safety and well-being of my family. There is no amount of money that will convince me that we should have this in the middle of our neighbourhoods. The process that so worries the doctor is hailed by the industry as the key to energy independence. The drill holes can go 3km down and then push out horizontally for kilometres as well. A cocktail of more than 500 chemicals, millions of litres of water, and truckloads of sand is then used to break up the shale and release gas and oil. Really, this is a new frontier. Nobody's done this. Nobody's done drilling in an urban setting and studied the long-term effects of what's going to happen. And so, again, it comes back to my health, clean air, clean water. Those are things that we can't live without. We could all live without gas royalties. I knew that if I didn't act and if gas drilling occurred near my home, and one of my children got sick, I would never forgive myself. The method of gas drilling they use is called hydraulic fracturing or fracking. As many Southlakers school themselves up on the fracking process, this documentary has been proving popular at the local Blockbuster. It's called 'Gasland', and this is its most famous scene. Whoa! Jesus Christ! I smell hair. (LAUGHS) Oh, damn. And people started to realise, 'My water's turning black.' 'It's bubbling.' 'Something smells funny.' 'My kids are getting sick.' They're all comparing information, and then they discover, lo and behold, that they can light their water on fire right out of the tap. Jesus Christ! Josh Fox is the 'Gasland' guru. It's really upsetting, actually. It's really upsetting, actually. Yeah (!) Josh Fox has become the anti-fracking pin-up, an inspiration for those fighting big oil, and a serious challenge to the industry. Oil and gas pushes people around. It's bullying, it's aggressive, it gets its way. It's about time we're done with that way of doing business, with the culture of that, because it is literally toxic in every aspect. It is toxic to the environment and it is toxic to our political process. COUNTRY MUSIC Here in Texas they're used to big oil. (PA) MAN: If you say Fort Worth and you talk about the energy business, you need to say XTO ` XTO Energy. And here, not far from Southlake, at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, the crowd loves their cowboys and the big oil operators that bring jobs and prosperity. (PA) MAN: And they take care of our kids. God bless XTO. Thanks a bunch. Yeah, buddy. Yeah, buddy. In just a few years, drilling rigs have sprouted up through the Texas suburbs like towering hills hoists ` across from shopping centres, close to schools, otherwise residential neighbourhoods have become industrial zones. When the fracking starts, trucks gather around the well. The sand, water and chemical mix is pushed deep underground at extremely high pressure. Escaping vapour drifts in the wind. It's dangerous. I see a lot of injuries. I've seen somebody actually get blown all the way back from a blowout. I've seen one guy die on a blowout. Fracking is now underway in 34 states in the US. And urban cowboy Taylor Hinkle is just one of those cashing in on the new energy boom on a Fort Worth rig. It's Friday, man. It's payday. It's great money. Like I said, it is a lifestyle. When I was young, I said it would never happen to me. But once you get a taste of that money, it's addictive. If there was a problem on this location, say somebody sparked a lighter in the wrong place, or, you know, a spark was discharged from a piece of equipment, you know. If this well was to blow up, who's to say that gas is not going to ignite underneath the ground and blow 20 different ones up around the airport. And that's the rub. There's a lot about what's happening under there that has people worried and has the oil companies on the defensive. Certainly, the API's best practices and operational standards that we encourage the industry to use are very important, and how industry goes about doing its business to make sure that they are operating safely, environmentally sound, and respectful of the neighbours and the stakeholders. One of the issues is chemical injection. The other issue is simply connecting the layers between these zones, which are toxic to ground water, very far under the ground where you have gas, oil, volatile organic compounds, benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, normally occurring radioactive material. And what you've just done is you have created a connecting straw between layers that nature separated out millions of years ago with the ground water. In 2005, the Bush administration passed an act exempting fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act. That means they don't have to apply for a permit, for chemical injection, and you're creating a highway of gas and oil that's going through the aquifer protected by a 1-inch cement casing. And you ask the industry do casings fail. And they say, 'Of course. 50% of them fail over the life of the well.' 50% of them fail over the life of the well, which means that in 20 and 30 years you've got a water contamination situation that's potentially catastrophic. It has definitely divided the town. It has not brought harmony to Southlake, let's put it that way. In Southlake, the fracking furore has provoked argument and insult. Zena Rucker is one of the original landholders here. And this is my backyard. She considers herself a dedicated environmentalist and a conscientious conserver. I am a true environmentalist. I drive a Prius. I never take anything to the garbage. It either gets in the compost or it gets recycled. She owns 75 acres ` pretty countryside that's worth a bomb on paper. A while ago, gas companies approached her with offers for the mineral rights on the property. There's my hanger and my wind sock. The cheques were too big to resist, even for a Prius driver. There was one that was pretty close to $300,000 ` the last one. I cashed some of them already. But they led me to believe that had they drilled, I could easily make $30,000 a month. But her bonanza's hit a wall. The local council has now sided with the fracking opponents and imposed a moratorium on development. I still can't get over being able to light your drinking water on fire. Even down on the farm, people are polarised by fracking and frackers. They're here to rape this land, make as much money as they can, and get the hell out of here. They will come on your property, look you straight in the eye and lie to you. And they will leave without a second thought, and they do not care. Welcome back. So, American residents are battling worrying new neighbours ` the frackers, their rigs, their trucks, their dust, vapour and noise. But the frackers are also invading a vast area of North America, and in one case, almost the entire state of North Dakota. It's pretty inhospitable country, particularly in the grip of a freezing winter when we arrive. Not so long ago, North Dakota was struggling to keep its population, but that, as they say, is so yesterday. From the grocery stores, to the parts stores, to the hardware stores, to the truck drivers, everybody is doing well. And if they tell you they're not doing well, they're either not very good business people or they are lying. It's a simple fact they're not up here for anything other than the almighty dollar. There is more oil than we can get out right now, and I'm not privy to what's happening in Saudi Arabia or off the coast, or up in Alaska, but this is a big play that's here for a long time. As long as the need's there and as long the price stays where it's going to be, this looks real strong. Nowhere is fuelling America's dreams of energy independence more than this place ` the shale rich plains of North Dakota. Just the oil that's here could help transform the world's biggest oil consumer into the world's biggest oil producer. A boom is an inadequate description. A boom beyond, I think it's safe to say, anything that anybody has really seen in this country since probably the land rushes in the early 1900s. This is Watford City, but in just 18 months, the population has grown from a little over 1000 to 6500 people. There was a time Gene Veeder knew everyone in town. He grew up here. Now the shops on main street are full of strangers, and for the head of this county's development authority, that's progress to be proud of. So now we are frantically trying to get housing for all those people in an area that really hasn't built much for the last 20 or 25 years. Right now the challenge in this community is to get water and sewer in so that developers can build more permanent housing. In a country where unemployment still hovers over 8%, North Dakota's jobless rate of 3% is the envy of the nation. For those lured by the lustre of the oil boom, finding somewhere to sleep can be harder than finding a job. The lucky ones end up here in hastily erected prefab man camps. A bunk and full board in a shared dorm room costs as much as $140 a night. No one's complaining. I am a fracker. I work for a fracking crew. All we do, basically, is just pump water, gel, chemicals and sand down a hole, and it helps the well produce oil more efficiently. Last year I grossed about $85,000, and this year it should be a lot more. Others not so lucky sleep where they can. Car parks are overflowing with mobile homes and caravans. Truck drivers sleep in their truck cabs, if they sleep much at all. You won't be surprised to know that just like suburban Southlake, Texas, not everyone's happy. Yeah, last winter, one day, my husband came back here and found this open spot, that should be frozen over, and then we discovered all this water bubbling. And how cold does it get here? And how cold does it get here? Oh gosh, 30 below here last week. 30 below? And this will still be like this? 30 below? And this will still be like this? Yeah. Wow. Jacki Schilke says her previously pristine spring-fed creek started to bubble just a month after fracking on a neighbouring property. We were drinking out of this creek. It was so clear. You wouldn't drink it now. You wouldn't drink it now. Oh God, no. I won't even walk in it let alone drink it. There you go. Jacki Schilke blames fracking for the loss of five cows, two dogs and a number of chickens, and for the decline of her own health. I was actually diagnosed with hydrocarbon exposure, and I've got a lot of problems that come along with it. Well, when you live 24 miles out in the middle of nowhere, that shouldn't be a problem. I should be breathing the cleanest air in the world. Oh darn, you girl. The industry admits its record isn't perfect, but says safety standards are improving all the time, and those who have been adversely impacted do have options. There's always issues. There's nothing that we do in any industry, and energy is not unique, that's completely risk-free. You have the ability to go to your state regulators and raise issues and concerns as private landowners depending on which state you're in, and what the state laws are, you may have recourse in the legal system. So there are lots of ways you can seek relief on that. They are goddam liars. They're here to rape this land, make as much money as they can, and get the hell out of here. They couldn't give a crap less what they're doing here. They will come on your property, look you straight in the eye and lie to you. And they will leave without a second thought, and they do not care. From North Dakota to Texas, and a slew of states in between, many now blame fracking for a range of ailments: headaches, nausea, dizziness, skin rashes and worse. When they came into my neighbourhood, I began having a lot of intense long-term headaches and extreme fatigue and dizziness. And now I've been diagnosed with anaemia. I never had anaemia. Jane Lynne lives in Arlington, Texas, a middle-class suburb just a few miles from Southlake. The fracking activity here in the past two years has been feverish. This has been like, I guess, my worst nightmare. It's like a bad dream, and I keep thinking, 'OK, I'm going to wake up. 'It's going to be back to normal,' and it's not, and it's sad, it's really sad. Everyone was so pro-drilling, and this is the red, white and blue American thing to do, and I just never saw it that way, and I was being personally affected by it. But now I'm seeing other people rise up who are feeling the same way. I think a lot of people now would like a do-over. DRAMATIC MUSIC In this car-crazy nation with its reliance on prickly, often hostile and unstable Middle Eastern suppliers, it's easy to see why the new energy rush within has gathered such momentum. But where it collides with the American heartland of family and future, and where it threatens wildlife and a way of life in America's vast backyard, fracking is fast becoming a very dirty word. Next week on Sunday, the Pink Terraces. For 125 years, we thought they were gone ` destroyed. They were there all the time. We just didn't know about it. The Pink Terraces ` once touted as the eighth wonder of the world until Lake Rotomahana exploded. Effectively, the lake got blown up into the air, blasted all the hillsides with mud, and, um, over 100 people lost their lives that day. For more than 125 years, it was thought the eruption destroyed the terraces. But now Cornel de Ronde and his team have found them on the lake bottom, under metres of sediment. Look at that. That's classic. We've stripped the water off, now we're going to strip the sediment off. We're going to bring back the June 10th 1886 eruption surface. But are the famous terraces still intact? Ooh, I find that so exciting. That's next week. That's our show for tonight. Check us out on Facebook ` Sunday TVNZ or drop us an email. We'll see you next week. Pomarie.