This past Monday, I attended a screening of GASLAND, a documentary about hydraulic fracturing, popularly known as “fracking.” This industry has become the largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history. The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and won six major awards. Directed, narrated, and filmed by Josh Fox, the film was centered on the process of “fracking” and how it is negatively affecting various towns in the United States due to the large number, 596 to be exact, chemicals used during the process. To put it in to simpler terms, fracking creates fractures from a wellbore, which is any hole drilled for the purpose of exploration or extraction of natural resources, drilled into reservoir rock formations. Fox was inspired and prompted to develop this documentary when he was asked to lease his land for drilling. While traveling all over the country, Fox was set out to discover the trail of secrets, lies, and contamination involved with this process.
Although I have known that drilling for natural gas in the United States was a very controversial topic, I never knew exactly why and what effects it entailed. The main issue addressed in the documentary was how the drilling sites affected those who lived near them. When I say near, I mean within clear view of the drilling site. Due to the considerable amount of chemicals “needed” for this process, many of these residents’ water is becoming contaminated to the point that several cases of cancer and brain damage have been reported. Their water had such high levels of chemicals that many people were able to set their tap water on fire as it was coming out of the faucet. Clearly this water is dangerous and undrinkable. There were a couple of families that even went as far was buying 500-gallon tanks and filling them with water from the nearest city.
The documentary also focused on the corporate side of this issue. One of Fox’s main goals was to speak to a CEO or someone of high position in these industries but he was turned down almost 100% of the time. He even went to various corporate offices and asked the employees if they would drink the water samples and all of them said now. My question is how can these large corporations keep drilling for natural gas if they clearly know the consequences? Many people are left without clean water, a necessity for living. The least they could do was make an appearance in Fox’s documentary and act like they care.