In his Academy Award-nominated documentary, “Gasland,” Fox shows that he New York City watershed and the Delaware River Basin, from which New York City and other municipalities get their drinking water, sit on a large natural gas formation, and the oil and gas industry has leased thousands of acres in the area to drill for natural gas.
In the nearly two-hour film, Fox takes a camera crew and travels across several states in which energy companies – particularly Halliburton – have been drilling for natural gas for years using a hydraulic fracturing or simply, hydro-fracking or fracking.
Environmental advocates have been outraged by hydro-fracking. It didn’t help that Halliburton – which developed the process in the 1940s – had refused to release even the names of the chemicals it was injecting into the ground, citing trade secrets. Recently Congress forced the energy companies to identify the chemicals.
The bigger problem, though, is that Halliburton – which was chaired by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president – was exempted from Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and the Superfund Law, allowing the company to go ahead with hydro-fracking without being regulated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The exemption has come to be known as the “Halliburton loophole.” The exemption was pushed through Congress after Cheney had convened an “Energy Task Force” that was composed mainly of energy company leaders who met only once with an environmental group.
Fracking is not to be mistaken for traditional natural gas drilling. In traditional natural gas drilling, the gas reservoirs in rock layers deep underground can be brought to the surface simply by drilling vertically, with minimal environmental impact. But fracking goes after the gas that isn’t in easily-accessible reservoirs, sometimes drilling horizontally and digging as deep as 11,000 feet. In order to break through rock, the drill requires up to 8 million gallons of water and nearly 600 chemicals, including known carcinogens such as benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene, to name a few. The goal is to rupture the rock that contains gas pockets, causing an explosion that frees the gas. A well can be drilled up to 118times. There’s also the noise pollution associated with the process due to the trucks, which have to make more than a thousand trips to set up a rig. (Continued after box)
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SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES ON HYDRO-FRACKING
GreenStream, Wednesday, April 13 at 9 pm EDT
Special guests are Jay Sweeney, Carl Arnold and Cecile Lawrence. The show will be hosted by Rachel Treichler.
Participate in a live chatroom!
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Friday, April 15 9:45 am - 5 pm
EPA co-hosts a conference with the Earth Institute, Columbia University on: The Path to a Sustainable Future Through the Protection of Public Health and the Environment
Admission: FREE (including lunch) and open to the public.
Agenda topics include Hydraulic Fracturing, Urban Pesticides Use, PCBs in Schools, and the Emerging Green Economy.
The agenda and registration details can be found at: http://calendar.columbia.edu/sundial/webapi/get.php?vt=detail&id=48203&con=standalone&br=ei_brand
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Fox graphically illustrates all these procedures as he gives his audience an up-close-and-personal view of several hydro-fracking drilling sites, and the testimonials of the residents who live in the “gaslands” of Colorado, Utah, Texas, Wyoming and Dimock, Pennsylvania – including a demonstration of tap water catching on fire at the touch of a match.
Fox, who introduces us to his rural home and family history growing up near a creek in Milanville, Pennsylvania, begins the film by explaining to the audience that he received a letter from an oil and gas company offering him nearly $5000 per acre to drill for natural gas on his land, meaning he would get about $100,000. However, he’s heard rumors that in Dimock, where natural gas drilling has already begun, there are complaints of contaminated drinking water that’s causing health problems. So he decides to visit the residents who have leased their land to the companies to see its effects in their communities. He says he has no choice but to become an “environmental detective”.
We see people who set their tap water on fire as if it were lighter fluid, sick and dead animals (with one woman collecting them in a freezer so they could be autopsied), and people who complain of massive headaches and body pains whose doctors can’t find any explanation. Fox introduces us to a woman whose front yard explodes on New Year’s Day -- not caused by fireworks, but by the methane that was released by fracking. And then there are the people who have used their local wells all their lives, but now must wait for fresh water to be trucked to their homes.
By the end of his journey across these “gaslands,” Fox says, “all the states started to swell together. Everywhere I went was the same story -- huge banks of compressor stations right in people’s backyards. Wells drilled right across the street of people’s houses. Poisoned streams in Arkansas. Huge refineries right next to cemeteries. Land farms where toxic sludge from waste pits were right next to residential communities…everyone had a look of worry.”
In the final segment, he brings it all home, explaining how the gas companies have discovered the Saudi Arabia of natural gas in upstate New York, the Marcellus Shale. This vast natural gas formation stretches across five states: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and West Virginia.
Since the documentary was first aired on HBO in 2009, there have been several conferences on the issue. One was in Manhattan at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Global Health Training Center, where Fox appeared via webcam after the screening of his film. He told the audience the main reason hydro-fracking has been allowed at all is due to the industry’s deep-pocketed lobbying.
“First of all, I say re-install the Safe Water Act, The Clean Air Act, the Superfund Law…all those should be re-introduced before you have any conversation about whether or not this is a viable form of energy,” Fox said. “Once you do that, you make this form of gas production so expensive for the companies it’s no longer profitable. It’s already very expensive -- the question is: Who’s paying the cost? If the gas company is not going to pay for the toxic pollution, to clean up the air, for the loss of real estate value, the health problems, etc….they don’t have to absorb those costs, you do and I do. This form of gas development is not financially viable if you were to repeal the exemptions.”
Joan Hoffman, a professor at the CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice, spoke at another conference across town. Hoffman authored the book, “The Cooperation Challenge of the Economics of Protecting our Water Supplies: A Case Study of the NYC Watershed Collaboration,” a 10-year study of the potential threats to the city’s drinking water and the solutions. She said the key to keeping New York City’s drinking water safe is to work with the residents who live in the Hudson River watershed, from where the city gets its drinking water.
The city spends money to help the upstate local economies by boosting tourism, finding markets for local businesses, maintaining septic tanks, providing grants and loans, and similar programs. Hoffman said hydro-fracking would endanger the water supply and infrastructure, wouldn’t provide real jobs because most of the work force consist of outsiders and temporary workers, and the project would lack any long-run stake in the economy.
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Last December, then-Governor David Paterson issued an executive order calling for a seven-month moratorium on hydro-fracking. Governor Cuomo has kept in place Paterson's executive order that suspended issuing new permits for horizontal Fracking until this July.
But it took Josh Fox’s “Gasland” to create awareness about the devastating effects of hydraulic fracturing. In showing how fracking is poisoning the water and sickening humans and animals anywhere it’s permitted, “Gasland” makes two vital points.
Fracking, Fox stresses, should be federally regulated because all the rivers and streams in America are intertwined and connected, like the many branches of a large tree.
Secondly, Fox says he instinctually knew ever since he was a child playing near the stream, that “water is the source of all life”.
When did we forget that?
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The legislative battle
Despite all the massively funded lobbying by Halliburton and other companies, some lawmakers are trying to fend off hydro-fracking in New York State. Some examples:
The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (H.R. 2766), (S. 1215), introduced in both houses of Congress on June 9, 2009 (sponsors include Sen. Charles Schumer), would repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act. It would require the energy industry to fully disclose the chemicals it mixes with the water and sand it pumps underground in the process -- information that has largely been protected as trade secrets.
New York City Councilman James F. Gennaro of Queens spearheaded a resolution in the City Council to call on the state to ban the drilling for natural gas within the New York City watershed. The resolution also calls on the state government to take a more proactive stance in protecting water supplies from the impacts of fracking, and on the federal government to regulate the practice in order to give greater protection to water supplies everywhere.
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From gaslandthemovie.com:
Frequently Asked Questions on Hydraulic Fracturing
How does hydraulic fracturing work?
Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.
What is horizontal hydraulic fracturing?
Horizontal hydro-fracking is a means of tapping shale deposits containing natural gas that were previously inaccessible by conventional drilling. Vertical hydro-fracking is used to extend the life of an existing well once its productivity starts to run out, sort of a last resort. Horizontal fracking differs in that it uses a mixture of 596 chemicals, many of them proprietary, and millions of gallons of water. This water then becomes contaminated and must be cleaned and disposed of.
What is the “Halliburton Loophole”?
In 2005, the Bush/ Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It exempts companies from disclosing the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing. Essentially, the provision took the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) off the job. It is now commonly referred to as the Halliburton Loophole.
What is the Safe Drinking Water Act?
In 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was passed by Congress to ensure clean drinking water free from both natural and man-made contaminates.
What is the FRAC Act?
The FRAC Act (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness to Chemical Act) is a House bill intended to repeal the Halliburton Loophole and to require the natural gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use.
How deep do natural gas wells go?
The average well is up to 8,000 feet deep. The depth of drinking water aquifers is about 1,000 feet. The problems typically stem from poor cement well casings that leak natural gas as well as fracking fluid into water wells.
How much water is used during the fracking process?
Generally 1-8 million gallons of water may be used to frack a well. A well may be fracked up to 18 times.
What fluids are used in the fracking process?
For each frack, 80-300 tons of chemicals may be used. Presently, the natural gas industry does not have to disclose the chemicals used, but scientists have identified volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene.
In what form does the natural gas come out of the well?
The gas comes up wet in produced water and has to be separated from the wastewater on the surface. Only 30-50% of the water is typically recovered from a well. This wastewater can be highly toxic.
What is done with the wastewater?
Evaporators evaporate off VOCs and condensate tanks steam off VOCs, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The wastewater is then trucked to water treatment facilities.
What is a well's potential to cause air pollution?
As the VOCs are evaporated and come into contact with diesel exhaust from trucks and generators at the well site, ground level ozone is produced. Ozone plumes can travel up to 250 miles.
