Suddenly, A New Genre: Independent Films About Fracking
Cool art house theater or screen porch screening, there’s a whole crop of new films that reveal the true stories of fracking and the impact of industrial shale gas extraction on people, land, air and water. There are so many new movies, you could spend the whole summer watching them, and why not? Here’s my current Don’t Miss list – please share your reviews and recommends.
Groundswell Rising Rough Cut Ready, Almost!
Susan Lyons recently posted on StopFrackingPA! that a “Rough Cut debut of Groundswell Rising sold out at Pocono Community Theater. Got there too late to get a seat. Hope to see the final version soon.”
Mark Dodel replied: “Actually we ended up watching Dear Gov Cuomo. The final print of Groundswell Rising wasn’t finished in time to get it to the theater I had never seen the Cuomo movie so it worked out. They will reschedule Groundswell soon.“
Groundswell Rising, Protecting Our Children’s Air And Water, the new documentary from Emmy Award-winning Resolution Pictures, captures the passion of people engaged in a David and Goliath confrontation. They stand together, challenging a system that promotes profit over health. We meet mothers, fathers, scientists, doctors, farmers and people from all sides of the political spectrum taking a hard look at energy extraction techniques not proven to be safe. With the Oil and Gas industry’s expansion of fracking seen as a moral issue, this provocative documentary tracks a people’s movement, a groundswell rising towards reason and sensitivity, to protect life, today and tomorrow.
Imagine discovering that you don’t own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. (more…)
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has held out long enough.
It’s time for the state to release the full test results from a Washington County, PA water well near a Range Resources fracking operation. It is, after all, the taxpayers who pay for such testing, and these taxpayers ought to know what pollutants have been identified in their drinking water. It’s perfectly reasonable to want to know to which toxic chemicals you have been exposed, especially when those chemicals have been intentionally omitted from your well water report by the DEP.
Now that the infamous “Suite Code 942” has been revealed, the jig is up. Am loathe to moralize, but it sure seems like the right thing to do.
“Critics suggest the purported ‘filtering’ of testing data is just one of the ways people are left in the dark about the assortment of heavy metals and other toxic contaminants that may be in their air and water as a result of drilling, hydraulic fracturing and other phases of natural gas production. Recent studies have identified more than 600 chemicals used throughout the process of natural gas production, and often left undisclosed by companies. Additionally, natural but equally hazardous substances can be released from the wells.“
Doesn’t DEP get it yet? Dismissing the drumbeats of concerned citizens only makes them louder.
The Delaware Riverkeeper Networkis asking people to please send this letter via the link on their site, or write you own, to those directly responsible for keeping this vital health information a secret. Addresses below. (more…)
Pennsylvania’s municipal water treatment plants were designed to handle the bio solids of sewage, not the radioactive compounds contained in shale gas drilling waste. They can’t handle the massive volumes of frack flowback produced in our state.
It takes 4.5 to 9 million gallons of fresh water to hydro-frack a single natural gas well. There are more than 30,000 permits awaiting approval in Pennsylvania over the next 10 years. In addition to the 8,982 frack wells currently operating in Pennsylvania, that equals 165 billion gallons of fresh water, largely from the Special Protection Waters of the Delaware River Watershed and the Susquehanna River Basin. Once removed, this water is destined to become toxic, radioactive frack “flowback.” And, by the way, that’s way more water than we actually have.
At first blush, recycling frack flowback – both onsite and at regional treatment plants – seems like the perfect solution. There’s now a long list of companies who want to sell or lease their services to drillers, along with their glorified mobile distillation units. But this, too, poses new problems and raises even more questions about shale gas waste regulation and oversight. Ultimately, waste recyclers still have to deal with the disposal of the super salty waste bi-product known as brine.
So now, recycled frack brine is to be sold - at around $.05 a gallon - to PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) to spray on our roads for deicing in winter, and something called “dust suppression.”
Seriously, dust suppression.
Untreated frack brine has been shown to include barium, radium, strontium and a range of radionuclides. Sometimes, there’s even uranium. (Yes, there’s uranium down there, too.) Flowback may also contain sodium and calcium salts, iron, oil, numerous heavy metals, diesel fuel and industrial soaps. And now this stuff might be on my running shoes, and the wheels of my kids’ bikes. Heavy snows and spring rains will carry these compounds into our rivers and streams, lacing our waterways with toxins. Are you kidding me?
How is it, though they’re using taxpayer dollars to buy this supposedly “clean” brine, that there was no public input?
According to Global Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing, a facebook page administered by Luke Ashley of Wrexam, England, “Understanding how fracking and repeated fracking can result in failing well integrity. Gaps and cracks in the annular casing cement allow unwanted contaminates to migrate between formation layers and aquifers. After a well has been repeatedly fracked and is no longer economically viable, it is plugged and abandoned but nothing is or can be done to ensure adequate well integrity between the casing and drilled well bore.”
Cement Isn’t Magic. All Frack Wellbore Seals Fail Eventually.
A little more than halfway through the The Delaware Riverkeeper Network‘s Virtual Canoe Race, and I’m happy to say that our boat, The Green Zombies, is not in last place. Currently, Adirondacker and Pampitus have a commanding lead, with Howler paddling hard through Port Jervis and gaining fast. Shout out to Sojourn 5, in position 27 – they know it ain’t over! There’s plenty of river miles left, and we’re having a blast despite our virtual blisters. (more…)
England, Canada, United States, Ireland, Czech Republic, France, Denmark, South Africa… On Saturday, September 22, 2012, energetic yet peaceful protests sprouted up around the globe as many thousands gathered to demonstrate their concern over fracking for shale gas.
Images of The Global Frackdown from nearly every continent depict the growing outrage over this dangerous and polluting form of extreme fossil fuel extraction. They’ve been gloriously collected on the Global Frackdownfacebook page.
According to EcoWatch.org in Thousands Rally Around The World To Ban Fracking: ”Major actions overseas included a rally on the steps of the European Parliament; demonstrations in front of Parliament buildings in South Africa, Bulgaria and the Czech republic; marches in Argentina; grassroots activities in Paris and the south of France, and screenings of the film Gasland in Spain.”
Protests against unconventional shale gas drilling have been popping up across the United Shale Shocked States of late, and the global List of Fracking Bans and Moratorium, curated by the incomparable Johnny Lineham at Fracking Hell (UK), has grown so long it speaks for itself. More citizens in more countries are demanding serious study of the impacts of unconventional gas production on human health and climate change. Is it a coincidence that the public’s interest in renewables has also been renewed? Given than many of the bans and moratorium are in the US, it’s safe to say most Americans expect an equally high level of environmental accountability from elected officials.
In front of the Convention Center, 13th & Arch Sts., Philadelphia, PA (19107)
Hyperbolic Hippies On The March?
Anti-Fracking Activists will go “toe-to-toe” with gas industry executives who will be present at The Marcellus Shale Coalition‘s second annual Shale Gas Insightconference, held on the very same day. As Protecting Our Waters, the Shale Gas Outrage host organization, states: “Industry will be rubbing elbows with some of our elected officials, their sights set on expanding toxic fracking throughout our region. Their ‘greenwashing’ doesn’t fool anyone: we’ve seen the damage, and even with a few new regulations, the damage is escalating out of control.“ (more…)
Please join me in supporting the Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s upcoming Virtual Canoe Race.
Adults and junior paddlers can join this fun race by “virtually” paddling down the scenic, historic Delaware. Or you can simply cheer on the racers by sponsoring a “virtual canoe.”
The Delaware River is the last major free flowing river in the Eastern U.S. Unlike most major river systems, the Delaware has no dams and so it can be canoed for its entire length. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network is committed to keeping the scenic, historic Delaware River Watershed free flowing, clean and healthy.
Each week, starting with a posting on September 30, a series of multiple choice questions and extra mileage opportunities will be posted to the Race Website. You will have one week to answer all of the questions correctly. The sooner you get in the questions the more river miles you earn. The more correct answers you have the farther down the River you will paddle!
Thanks for sharing my concern for our precious watershed environments, and for getting to know this amazing organization!
In the face of a frightful dearth of genuine environmental stewardship at top Pennsylvania state levels, New Yorkers living in Marcellus towns have been scrambling to proactively manage the imminent shale gas issues confronting them – from water management to truck traffic and emergency preparedness, to the negative impact on their taxbase. The Marcellus Effect chronicles the town of Caroline’s struggle to protect its water supply near Ithaca New York in How Far Is “Safe” When Protecting Aquifers?
Simultaneously, one of New York’s most picturesque finger lakes strives to maintain hard-won environmental gains as residents and fans organize to fight off an ill-advised gas storage facility planned for the abandoned salt mines located beneath it. You can learn about the citizen-led struggle to Save Seneca Lake in writer Elaine Mansfield’s moving video, Angry Faces, Placid Water: Fracking, LPG Gas Storage, and Seneca Lake produced by Owl Gorge Productions.
“The oil and gas industry plans to build an enormous liquid petroleum gas storage and distribution depot in abandoned salt mines under Seneca Lake near Watkins Glen, one of New York’s most popular scenic tourist attractions. Part of the Marcellus Shale hydrofracking nightmare, this huge facility threatens the pure water of Seneca Lake with petroleum gas and salt pollution, would burn off excess gas with a towering flare stack, produce air pollution, and be a visual and noisy blight along this gorgeous lake. Worst of all would be the constant risk of gas explosions. Local resident, writer, and activist Elaine Mansfield eloquently presents this issue in Smith Park along the shore of Seneca Lake.“
A single sane voice in the lamestream media? As early as 2010, msnbc‘s Rachel Maddow has been asking the seemingly obvious questions no one else wants to ask. (more…)
Has The Truthland™ 8H Frack Well Ruined The Water Table?
Scott Cannon’s video camera is loaded for bear.
Routinely stonewalled by state agencies like the DEP, Resources Environmental, Fish and Boat, or the many other offices they’re told to call, Pennsylvanians have been quick to recognize that it’s up to them to put the impacts of industrial shale gas drilling on record. Official documentation of the damage inflicted by the industry on land, air and water may be slow to emerge, if ever.
Filmaker Cannon and Gas Drilling Awareness Coalitionhave long chronicled the devastating impacts of shale gas development in the epic The Marcellus Shale Reality Tour series. Here, the fifth installment covers events occurring in Franklin Forks, PA, not long after several frack wells were drilled nearby. It’s a perplexing and pathetic irony that four of those wells are on property owned by the Depues, the perky Truthland family seen sprawled across sofas, slamming Gasland, referring to it as “this little movie.” Y’know, the ones with the bubbling annulus. (more…)
Bechtel, a private water corporation operating in Bolivia, once went so far as to prohibit citizens from collecting rainwater… Sounds extreme, yet are rising water prices in the United States merely the first wave? As shale gas drillers ‘consume’ millions of gallons of fresh water everyday in Pennsylvania, depleting and despoiling local water tables, what will it mean for the million-plus well-water users across the state?
Sign the Water Bill of Rights via the website for the landmark film, Last Call At The Oasis, by Academy Award-winning director, Jessica Yu, based on the book by Karl Weber. Learn more, start here … (more…)
“They’re poisoning you, and they’re telling you there’s nothing wrong…”
Gas companies don’t have to win the debate over whether fracking is safe or not, they only need to run out the clock. To argue the point seems kinda moot when they’re fracking away anyway. There are more than 200,000 fracking rigs in the US and, according to StateImpact’s frack map app, nearly 7,725 of them are in Pennsylvania. Yet if there’s no honest debate, who really wins and who loses? If you happen to live in a drilling-free county (you know who you are), consider taking a moment to listen to the people who live among the 7,725 rigs. Their experiences make it difficult to maintain that more fossil fuels and deadly dangerous drilling jobs are such a great thing.
The Woodlands by Rich Waters from Butler County, Pennsylvania
“When you’re so used to being healthy, it’s not fun getting sick and not knowing why.“
Uploaded by NatureAbounds:Residents in Butler County, Pennsylvania share their fracking experience. Film shared courtesy of Nature Abounds’ friend Rich Waters, a local photographer and videographer who is documenting how fracking is changing the lives of his neighbors in Southwest Pennsylvania. (more…)
Gotta hand it to our sneaky, fathead governor. The ban on unconventional gas drilling in the South Newark Basin has been as divisive as a new Duke water study.
Since the Bucks and Montgomery county moratorium was tucked into the new state budget, which was signed on July 2, 2012, the articles, posts and Op-Eds decrying the hypocrisy of the measure have been proliferating like crazy. The Inky editorial, Fracking Ban Is About Our Water, says it all. Turns out, when you slyly slip seven all-important paragraphs into a late draft of an already cumbersome state budget, as did Sen. Chuck McIlhinney [R-Bucks], the body politic leaves for summer recess with a sour taste in its mouth. Reporters Michael Macagnone and Angela Couloumbis lay out the details in Local Drilling Moratorium Rankles Rest of State on Philly.com. (more…)
Natural gas drilling is complicated. I’ve been known to go on about it long past the point of being polite. Woe to those who ask a simple question because there are no simple answers. Yet if you care deeply about our environment, about public health and the health of future generations, it’s difficult not to get a little impassioned when the subject comes up. Thankfully, it comes up a lot more often. When I’m fortunate enough to have the ear of a state official, I keep it brief but I let them know I’m alarmed by specific impacts of Shale Gas Production. I stick to the facts, and mind my manners of course.
Wanna see a gas industry executive lying like a dirty rug to an understandably concerned citizen at public Zoning Board meeting in Pennsylvania? Watch.
“Shouldn’t have any in it,” drones Chief Gathering’s expert witness, an employee whose name is not readily apparent, in response to questions about specific toxins from a resident concerned about the air impacts of a newly permitted Glycol Dehydration Unit near her home in Monroe Township. She wanted to know if Chief’s new unit would emit benzene, toluene or formaldehyde. He said the station will emit only methane. She also asked if the emissions would affect her children’s asthma. She was told, simply, “I don’t believe it does.“
Something smelled off to Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition Luzerne County, who picked up on Chief’s misinformation right away. They submitted data, along with the gas guy’s testimony, to two highly regarded experts seeking their take on this brand of bullshit from industry boots on the ground. GDACLucerne then posted the responses with the video on YouTube. It’s footage like this that makes the gas industry wince, and want to ban citizens from videotaping public township meetings. (more…)
Once again, PennEnvironment has smashed the barrier between Big Green and grassroots by eloquently framing the case for a moratorium on fracking in Pennsylvania. This week, PennEnviro presented a series of videos entitled Marcellus Shale Stories. Each clip features citizens speaking out, succinctly describing one aspect of the complex story that is Industrial Shale Gas Drilling. Together, their experiences are a testament to the devastating toll that shale gas production is presently exacting from unwitting Pennsylvanians like you and me.
Non-hysterically narrated by PennEnvironment‘s Erica Staaf, Marcellus Shale Stories is more than a catalog of the ill-effects of gas drilling. It’s an anthology of cautionary tales from Pennsylvania’s Sacrifice Zone, and it underscores the serious need for a moratorium on new drilling permits until comprehensive socio-economic and environmental impact studies are conducted. Otherwise, we are all vulnerable to:
Adverse Health Impacts
Water Contamination
Declining Property Values
Compromised Agriculture and Food Safety
Loss and Fragmentation of State Forest Land to Gas Drilling
Destruction of Scenic Landscapes Adversely Impacting Tourism
Downstream Pollution in Cities and Neighboring States
