Gasland
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 12:00AM One of the newest and biggest threats to water quality is the process of hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Fracking is a Haliburton developed process for extracting natural gas that is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act thanks to the (Bush/Cheney) 2005 Energy Policy Act. In addition to the toxic stew of wastewater left behind, 1 to 8 million gallons of water are needed to frack a well and a well may need to be fracked up to 18 times.
So what do you do when a gas company offers nearly $100,000 for the right to drill on your land? If you're Josh Fox, you refuse the money - then make an award-winning documentary portraying the natural gas industry as an environmental menace that ruins water, air and lives.
Gasland is currently airing at select times on HBO.
Can you do this with your tap water?
fracking, gasland in Film and Video
Reader Comments (19)
Just watched this yesterday (Comcast on-demand). Amazing... I had no idea. Makes ya kind of angry. Hope people watch this. It is worth your time.
Oh my fucking Lord. Time to get serious about divesting from the energy infrastructure.
Guess we can just go back to Coal Mining and riding horseback? Unless you want to rely on foreign countries for all imported Oil/Gas, hydrolic fracturing is 100% necessary to produce natural gas domestically. Fact is to build your rod, drive to your river, motor to your flat, Oil and Gas will be in the picture. There are safer ways to produce 100% no questions there. But quotes like "Oh my fucking Lord. Time to get serious about divesting from the energy infrastructure" are not going to get much press until your skiffs and trucks start running on "hopes and dreams."
I agree with K. Time for all the Motherf*ckers who bitch about the oil and gas industry to get the f*ck out of their cars! You drive to work, fish with a graphite rod, live with A/C in the summer and heat in the winter then you are an energy user. I am sick of the "not in my back yard shit" that liberal, panty waist attitude. You should kiss an oil and gas engineer everyday and say thank you. If you are hot girl you should kiss a Petroleum Geologist....
By the way, oil and gas wells have to have protective casing over aquifers. Accidents happen in ALL industries. The liberal media likes to protray the oil and gas industry as careless bastards. That is false. I know those guys on the rigs. They take pride in being safe and doing a good job. Lets see this Josh Fox push pipe for a twelve hour shift for two weeks, and then make a documentary about how the oil and gas industry is full of bastards. Like my favorite fly fishing character says "I'd like to get that bastard on the drilling floor with a bet on the side."
.............. What about the children????
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Does this mean that I can lease my asshole to a gas company and get rich???? I hope so.
K and AF (What's that stand for? And K, can you learn how to spell hydraulic if you're going to use big words?): You can AF me, just like the energy companies already have. You certainly lack imagination about how we can live quality lives without bowing to the greedy bastards in the energy industry. If they want to 'develop' those resources, let them do it responsibly -- not in ways that make folks' tap water flammable. Wait until this horror comes to your favorite watershed.
It's all Bullshit. We have been fracking wells in this area for 25 yrs and have never had a problem. To relate fracking to Bush or Haliburton only proves their desperate attempt at make a story out of nothing. Michael Moore must be involved in this. What a joke.
Living in Gas - do you drive a car or use any products that have plastic? Then you relie on the oil and gas industry.
Hydraulic fracturing has been used for over 75 years. It was first used in Pennsylvania. Get the facts on the oil and gas industry in our area. How many wells are drilled? To what depth.
I live in the Fort Worth Basin. We have had oil and gas production in the area since the 1920's. In that time, the ground water from the Trinity Aquifer has not been contaminated by the oil and gas drilling. That said, I would not each a fish from the Trinity River. Most of the pollution in that watershed comes from agriculture and rain water wash off from roads. I am a Geologist, and I have done soil studies (funded by the organizations that want to stop Hydraulic fracturing). I could find no evidence of toxic chemicals from oil and gas development, but found plenty from automotive exhaust and plastic disposal. Of these, the most noxious is Benzene, which occurs naturally in the soil in parts of Texas.
By the way Living in Gas Land, AF is my initials. I put part of name on my post. Grow up!
I like how AF has not responded to the video of tap water being ignited right out of the faucet. If you are going to defend fracking as environmentally sound, addressing the video of TAP WATER BEING LIT ON FIRE would be prudent.
Fire Water - there are inherent risks with most things in life where it is gas production or driving to work. Did you see the video of the fan falling off the upper deck 2 days ago at the Texas Rangers game? I guess we can't go to sporting events anymore because sometimes accidents happen? Wake up. America needs domestic gas production, unfortunately fracture technology is part of that reality; and unless you live in a shack up in the woods with a wood burning stove and live off the land you are a hypocrite for getting pissy about a minority of the millions of Americans that have Oil or Gas production in their backyard.
Yeah, I guess tap water lighting on fire in people's homes is just an inherent risk of oil and gas production. Good point, Unhappy.
I'm pretty sure he meant "accidents" are invetible little guy.
There is no proof that hydraulic fracturing caused that gas to be in the water.
I have seen that in my water well drilling business before. The same formation that produces the water also produces gas. The water gets drawn down and the gas expands into the water well. This is related to gas laws. If you have taken a basic chemistry class, you learn that a gas will expand to fill its container. The last time I saw it was at a gas station. They had a cistern well and the tank that held the gasoline leaked into the well.
Firewater, you need to take a geology class or a least a science class. Josh Fox is not a scientist nor is Al Gore or Michael Moore. Learn environmental science in a class room, not on HBO.
Boom Roasted
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33377903/Gasland-Debunked
Debunks many of the statements made in the Documentary, may hurt Fire Water and Living in Gasland's Feelings'
Realist - thanks for the post. I noticed that the flared water tap was the result of biogenic gas. Don't those boys in Colorado know how to throw garbage away? Is the spetic tank leach field next to the water well. That is sick. Next time I am in Colorado, I will be careful not to drink tap water. YUCK!
I'm all for domestic production of fuel however the bulk of whats been drilled isn't making it to us in the US! Its a necessary evil but you would think by now we would have technology to make it as safe for the environment as well as people. From what I understand the issue isn't the drilling but the process of treating the frac water. There aren't many purification plants that can handle the amounts of water or remove the contaminants. Why does every environmental issue on here turn into a political party war? Shouldn't things like this be a bi-partisan issue?