Catchy and informative musical cartoon on hydraulic fracturing. The song is based on ProPublica’s investigation on hydraulic fractured gas drilling.
My Water’s On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song)
Category Archives: Water and Hydrocarbons
Andrew Nikiforuk on New Report: Debunking the ‘Shale Gale’
From TheTyee.ca – May 16, 2011
by Andrew Nikiforuk
For several years now, the natural gas industry has
been exclaiming Hallelujahs about the marvels of shale gas with the
passion of a church choir belting out Handel’s “Messiah.”
The hallelujahs, which spring from the U.S.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) or the likes of Chesapeake
Energy (“American’s Champion of Natural Gas”), come in three happy
choruses.
The first says that the shale gas
revolution will miraculously create 100 years worth of methane; the
second chorus maintains that the price of natural gas, a volatile
commodity, will stay low for decades; and the last chorus says that
natural gas will green the economy and arrest climate change.
Hallelujah.
But a new report by J. David Hughes, one of
North America’s foremost coal and gas experts, challenges every single
one of these faith-based assumptions with hard science and clear-eyed
math. In the stunningly lucid 64-page report
for the Post Carbon Institute, Hughes squarely concludes that all three
assumptions are highly questionable, if not total “impossibilities.”
Hughes is no wide-eyed greenie or industry
basher. He happens to be one of Canada’s most credible energy
scientists. The geologist worked for Natural Resources Canada for 32
years and mapped Canada’s coal and coal bed methane fields. He has also
served on Canada’s Natural Gas Potential Committee and is regarded as
one of the continent’s top global energy analysts. (B.C. politicians
take note: Hughes lives on Cortes Island on the West Coast.)
“Natural gas is a truly important resource.
But industry has overblown what shale gas can do for us,” says Hughes.
“Shale gas is an exercise in creating greater complexity with lower and
lower returns.”
Shale industry ‘hubris’
Until shale gas appeared on the scene,
analysts predicted a high noon for natural gas. Gas production in the
U.S. peaked in 1973, and has been on a bumpy production plateau ever
since. But then companies started to use horizontal drilling, combined
with hydraulic fracturing, to open deep rock formations once considered
as inaccessible as bowhead whales in the Arctic.
Hydraulic fracking, a high-energy technology that uses millions of gallons of water, sand and toxic chemicals to blast open methane trapped in dense rock, created a shale boom from Pennsylvania to northern B.C. and beyond.
The fracking energy binge, which
industrializes rural landscapes, sparked moratoriums in Quebec and New
York due to widespread concerns about surface and groundwater
contamination, and earthquakes from reinjected fracking fluids. U.S.
Energy Minister Steven Chu just ordered a high level investigation on fracking issues. Even France has banned the practice to protect its water-dependent cheese makers and grape growers.
Although T. Boone Pickens, the natural gas
lobby and some environmental groups now champion shale gas as a
“transition fuel” that could possibly retire coal plants and even power
vehicles, Hughes says the real production numbers don’t add up without
unprecedented levels of drilling.
For starters, industry hubris simply defies
the law of thermodynamics. From 1990 levels, U.S. gas drilling tripled
to 33,000 wells per year between 2006 and 2008 before collapsing back to
20,000 wells. In order to build a modest 21 per cent increase in
natural gas production, the gas industry constructed a complex
infrastructure nearly 100 per cent larger than what previously existed
in 1990.
“What matters are flow rates and how fast
the gas can be produced,” explains Hughes. “There may be 100 years worth
of methane in the ground, but it may take 800 years to produce it.”
Meanwhile, conventional gas production in both Canada and the U.S. is
declining rapidly. In other words, shale gas might temporarily replace
some of the air leaving the conventional gas tire — but not for long.
Read full article
France bans ‘fracking’ after months of protest
From The Tyee – May 13, 2011
by Andrew MacLeoad
France’s parliament voted this week to ban a controversial method of
extracting shale gas, but don’t expect British Columbia to follow
anytime soon.
“I don’t know what France’s environmental standards are
and how they do their work,” said B.C.’s Energy and Mines Minister Rich
Coleman. “I know we’ve been doing fracking here for probably over a
decade or more . . . We have pretty high environmental standards. We
track it, we watch it, and we’re going to continue to do so.”
Fracking is a process that involves injecting rock
formations with water, chemicals and sand to break them apart and allow
the fossil fuels they contain to be extracted. Opponents say the process
uses toxic substances and contaminates groundwater.
“What we’re doing is a lot different even mix wise than
some of these other jurisdictions,” said Coleman. “We’re so much deeper
than they are. We’re way down three or four thousand feet . . . and our
ground water in the area we’re doing is probably up at 300 or 400 feet,
so we’re way beyond below it and we haven’t had any leaching.”
The province plans to do a health study related to
fracking, but unlike in some other jurisdictions the process is used in
remote areas of B.C. far from residential areas, he said.
France’s fracking ban still needs to pass the country’s
senate to become law. “The overwhelming vote by the National Assembly
follows months of protest across France against a technique that
environmentalists say threatens to pollute the water table,” wrote the Financial Times.
Read original article
Rosebud landowner launches $33M lawsuit against Encana, government over methane in drinking water
From the The Calgary Herald – April 27, 2011
by Kelly Cryderman
CALGARY — A southern Alberta landowner who has long claimed coal bed
methane drilling polluted her well has launched a lawsuit demanding more
than $10 million each from Encana, the Alberta government and the
province’s energy regulator.
Jessica Ernst, 54, is one of
the province’s most outspoken critics of drilling methods such as
fracking — where water, chemicals and sand are blasted deep underground
to break up coal formations and release natural gas.
In a
statement of claim filed at the courthouse in Drumheller, Alta., she
states the failure of Alberta’s Environment Department and the Energy
Resources Conservation Board to investigate her case and enforce
regulations “served as a government coverup of environmental
contamination caused by the oil and gas industry.”
Ernst
claims that a decade ago Encana “began a risky and experimental drilling
program for shallow coal bed methane at dozens of wells in the area
around Rosebud,” a small hamlet northeast of Calgary.
Ernst,
an environmental consultant for the oil and gas industry who lives near
the hamlet, alleges the natural gas giant released a large amount of
contaminants into underground freshwater supplies.
“As a
result, Ms. Ernst’s water is now so contaminated with methane and other
chemicals that it can be lit on fire,” said the legal statement.
None of Ernst’s claims have been proven in court.
In
2008, an Alberta Research Council report concluded the methane found in
the wells in the area was naturally occurring, a phenomenon that exists
in parts of Alberta where underground water supplies come from coal
seams. The report stated that “energy development projects in the areas
most likely have not adversely affected the complainant water wells.”
On
Tuesday, Encana spokesman Alan Boras said the company had just become
aware of the Ernst lawsuit and “as a result we would have to review it
before we made any comment — if we did at all, because it’s before the
courts.”
Alberta Environment spokesman Trevor Gemmell also declined to comment, saying the matter is before the courts.
At the ERCB, spokesman Bob Curran said in an email the board has not been served with a statement of claim.
Ernst
will hold a news conference in Calgary Wednesday, and said in a news
release she will bring her story to the United Nations Commission on
Sustainable Development in New York next week.
Fracking, or
hydraulic fracturing, is a method used by drillers to extract
unconventional natural gas resources being tapped as conventional
supplies run low.
Ernst is seeking damages of at least
$11.7 million from Encana, $10.7 million from Alberta Environment and
$10.75 million from the ERCB.
Read original article
Pennsylvania blowout fuels fracking fears
From UPI.com – April 22, 2011
PITTSBURGH, April 22 (UPI) — A blowout at a Pennsylvania natural gas
well has fueled increased concerns about the already controversial
practice of hydraulic fracking.
The well, owned by Chesapeake Energy Corp., experienced an equipment
failure Tuesday, sending chemical-laced water over the drilling site in
Bradford County, Pa. and into nearby waterways, including Towanda Creek,
which feeds into the Susquehanna River.
“There have been no injuries and there continues to be no danger to
the public,” Brian Grove, senior director for corporate development at
Chesapeake, said in a statement.
The company stopped all operations in the state and said Thursday that it had successfully sealed the leaking gas well.
The accident comes one year after an explosion sunk the Deepwater
Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in 11 deaths and the
worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, and at a time when hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” is coming under increased scrutiny from state
and federal officials.
The technique, used to release vast reserves of natural gas buried
underground, involves massive amounts of water, sand and chemicals
injected at high pressures to fracture rock and release the stored gas.
A report released by Democratic members of Congress last week said
that more than 650 of the chemicals used in fracking were carcinogens.
In the fracking process, anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of the water
injected into the well returns to the surface carrying drilling
chemicals, high levels of salts and sometimes naturally occurring
radioactive material. The state of Pennsylvania has allowed drillers to
discharge much of the waste through sewage treatment plants into
rivers, The New York Times reports.
An investigation by the Times found that more than 1.3 billion
gallons of wastewater was produced by Pennsylvania wells over the past
three years. But treatment plants to which the wastewater was sent
weren’t equipped to remove many of the toxic materials contained in the
drilling waste.
Environmental group American Rivers has called on Congress to push
for the restoration of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to
regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act, removed
in a 2005 energy bill referred to as the “Halliburton loophole.”
“In case last year’s BP oil spill wasn’t enough of a wake-up call,
now we have another disaster, this time in Pennsylvania. The American
people have had it with the industry’s false assurances,” said Andrew
Fahlund, senior vice president for conservation at American Rivers.
Pennsylvania’s massive Marcellus Shale reserve is believed to hold
enough gas to supply the country’s energy needs for heat and
electricity, at current consumption rates, for more than 15 years. Some
3,300 Marcellus gas-well permits were issued to drilling companies last
year, compared to 117 in 2007.
Read original article and watch video
New York Times: Fracking Chemicals Were Injected Into Wells, Report Says
From the New York Times – April 16, 2011
by Ian Urbina
WASHINGTON — Oil and gas companies injected hundreds of millions of
gallons of hazardous or carcinogenic chemicals into wells in more than
13 states from 2005 to 2009, according to an investigation by
Congressional Democrats.
The chemicals were used by companies during a drilling process known as
hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, which involves the high-pressure
injection of a mixture of water, sand and chemical additives into rock
formations deep underground. The process, which is being used to tap
into large reserves of natural gas around the country, opens fissures in the rock to stimulate the release of oil and gas.
Hydrofracking has attracted increased scrutiny from lawmakers and
environmentalists in part because of fears that the chemicals used
during the process can contaminate underground sources of drinking
water.
“Questions about the safety of hydraulic fracturing persist, which are
compounded by the secrecy surrounding the chemicals used in hydraulic
fracturing fluids,” said the report, which was written by
Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California, Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Diana DeGette of Colorado.
The report, released late Saturday, also faulted companies for at times
“injecting fluids containing chemicals that they themselves cannot
identify.”
The inquiry over hydrofracking, which was initiated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee
when Mr. Waxman led it last year, also found that 14 of the nation’s
most active hydraulic fracturing companies used 866 million gallons of
hydraulic fracturing products — not including water. More than 650 of
these products contained chemicals that are known or possible human
carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or are listed
as hazardous air pollutants, the report said.
A request for comment from the American Petroleum Institute about the report received no reply.
Matt Armstrong, an energy attorney from Bracewell & Giuliani that
represents several companies involved in natural gas drilling, faulted
the methodology of the congressional report released Saturday and an
earlier report by the same lawmakers.
“This report uses the same sleight of hand deployed in the last report
on diesel use — it compiles overall product volumes, not the volumes of
the hazardous chemicals contained within those products,” he said.
“This generates big numbers but provides no context for the use of these
chemicals over the many thousands of frac jobs that were conducted
within the timeframe of the report.”
Some ingredients mixed into the hydraulic fracturing fluids were common
and generally harmless, like salt and citric acid. Others were
unexpected, like instant coffee and walnut hulls, the report said. Many
ingredients were “extremely toxic,” including benzene, a known human
carcinogen, and lead.
Companies injected large amounts of other hazardous chemicals, including
11.4 million gallons of fluids containing at least one of the toxic or
carcinogenic B.T.E.X. chemicals — benzene, toluene, xylene and
ethylbenzene. The companies used the highest volume of fluids containing
one or more carcinogens in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.
The report comes two and a half months after an initial report by the
same three lawmakers that found that 32.2 millions of gallons of fluids
containing diesel, considered an especially hazardous pollutant because
it contains benzene, were injected into the ground during hydrofracking
by a dozen companies from 2005 to 2009, in possible violation of the
drinking water act.
A 2010 report by Environmental Working Group,
a research and advocacy organization, found that benzene levels in
other hydrofracking ingredients were as much as 93 times higher than
those found in diesel.
The use of these chemicals has been a source of concern to regulators
and environmentalists who worry that some of them could find their way
out of a well bore — because of above-ground spills, underground
failures of well casing or migration through layers of rock — and into
nearby sources of drinking water.
These contaminants also remain in the fluid that returns to the surface after a well is hydrofracked. A recent investigation
by The New York Times found high levels of contaminants, including
benzene and radioactive materials, in wastewater that is being sent to
treatment plants not designed to fully treat the waste before it is
discharged into rivers. At one plant in Pennsylvania, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency
revealed levels of benzene roughly 28 times the federal drinking water
standard in wastewater as it was discharged, after treatment, into the
Allegheny River in May 2008.
The E.P.A.
is conducting a national study on the drinking water risks associated
with hydrofracking, but assessing these risks has been made more
difficult by companies’ unwillingness to publicly disclose which
chemicals and in what concentrations they are used, according to
internal e-mails and draft notes of the study plan.
Some companies are moving toward more disclosure, and the industry will
soon start a public database of these chemicals. But the Congressional
report said that reporting to this database is strictly voluntary, that
disclosure will not include the chemical identity of products labeled as
proprietary, and that there is no way to determine if companies are
accurately reporting information for all wells. In Pennsylvania, the
lack of disclosure of drilling ingredients has also incited a heated
debate among E.P.A. lawyers about the threat and legality of treatment
plants accepting the wastewater and discharging it into rivers.
Read original article
New Cartoon: The Unforeseen Consequenses of Natural Gas Fracking
Check out the latest from our cartoonist Gerry Hummel. Hydraulic Fracturing, or “fracking” – a relatively new method for extracting natural gas – involves shooting a mixture of highly pressurized water, sand, and unknown chemicals deep underground in order to crack open shale formations to release gas. The value of the resource in BC has been pegged at $750 Billion – and while we’re going gangbusters to develop our local industry, concentrated in northeast BC, other jurisdictions throughout the US and Canada are putting the brakes on fracking until we have a better grasp of its ecological and geological consequences, and how to better manage the enormous volumes of water currently being used in the process.
Shades of Green: Fukushima Daiichi and Decision Time
The unfolding events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan are more than a human and environmental disaster. The cooling problem and subsequent radiation leaks that are contaminating food, land and water are tragic reminders of the dilemma facing a growing world population that is demanding increasing amounts of energy to fuel higher levels of production and consumption. The rising complexity of technology, the looming shortage of resources and the physical limits imposed by a finite planet all compound this dilemma. Indeed, Fukushima Daiichi is a symbol of the fragile successes and the menacing failings of our sophisticated age. Thus Japan is providing a glimpse into the future of every modern society everywhere.
Just as modern Japan arose by embracing industrialization at the end of the Tokugawa Period, it also arose from the ruin of World War II by embracing technology. And the Japanese success has been stupendous. Within a few decades of the wreckage of 1945, it had become the second largest economy on the planet – it is now third, after recently being overtaken by China. The world is full of Japanese technology, innovation and products: electronics, computers, digitization, cars, ships and robotics. Its manufacturing, buying and consumption habits affect the economy of the world.
Although modern Japan has a people who are dedicated and industrious, it doesn’t have the local natural resources to empower this capability. So it imports vast quantities of raw materials and exports them as finished products. And it has solved its energy problem by adopting nuclear power, the same kind of technological sophistication that has brought it other successes.
Japan is the third largest user of nuclear energy in the world. Its 55 nuclear reactors are clean, efficient and perfectly tailored to the compact, dense and vigorous character of the country. The reactors are also an ideal match for the profligate use of energy that powers Japan’s industry, cities, trains, entertainment and communication systems. Indeed, Japan’s social, cultural and economic vitality seems to be more closely connected to massive quantities of electricity than almost any country in the world. The humming activity of Japan is synonymous with the humming current coursing through its ubiquitous power lines.
The choice Japan made decades ago to adopt nuclear power as the solution to its energy needs is now a choice confronting the rest of the world. The other options seem fraught with shortcomings. Coal, although plentiful, is polluting, and its high carbon dioxide output makes it the worst possible energy source on a planet subject to the looming effects of greenhouse warming. Most of the world’s hydro-electric potential has already been harnessed. Oil is almost as dirty as coal, and its supply is on the verge of falling below demand. Renewable energies such as wind, solar, tidal and geothermal may not be able to meet the growing needs of industrialization, consumption and population. Conservation and efficiency, although helpful, can’t seem to compensate for rising energy use. At the time and under the circumstances, Japan’s decision to go nuclear seemed a smart strategy.
But the twin traumas of a massive earthquake and a huge tsunami have changed this calculus. The near-meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 come flooding back as vivid, cautionary memories. Nuclear waste still remains an unsolved problem. Now the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi – Japan’s third nuclear disaster after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – are a reminder that the technology, regardless of the precautions and safeguards, is complex and unforgiving. Any human error, laxity or failed foresight can reap horrendous consequences. Are the risks worth the benefits?
The answer is not apparent in the changing economics of energy production. A new nuclear power plant takes 10 years and $6 billion to build – a cost that is rising rapidly as increasingly stringent safety measures have to be incorporated into designs. A comparable coal plant takes 3 years and $3 billion – coal is plentiful but dirty and sequestering its carbon is expensive and unproven. A gas plant can be built in 2 years at a cost of $1 billion – although shale gas is now being found in massive quantities, the “fracking” required to release it from rock may contaminate groundwater and aquifers, and it still produces about half the carbon dioxide of coal. The only wholly positive option is clean, renewable energy sources. Its efficiency is increasing and its cost is decreasing – but critics contend this technology is not yet remotely capable of meeting our huge energy needs. Conservation, too, is only a partial solution.
So this brings the subject back to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. The unfolding disaster there is an existential moment, a crisis that is an opportunity for everyone on the planet to awaken to the energy dilemma facing us all. The Japanese have responded with heroic calm to the multiple calamities of earthquake, tsunami and radiation. Some workers have undoubtedly sacrificed their health and lives to keep Fukushima Daiichi from becoming another Chernobyl.
Although we are not required to be so brave, Fukushima Daiichi is a vivid reminder that the time has come for us to think very, very seriously about our own energy needs, lifestyles and priorities. Whether or not we have noticed, the unfolding events in Japan are an object lesson for us.
B.C. to continue ‘fracking’ for gas, despite bans elsewhere
From the Vancouver Sun – March 30, 2011
by Jeff Lee
British Columbia has no worries about the controversial use of
hydraulic fracturing in natural gas production, even though other
governments have recently instituted moratoriums on the process, Energy
and Mines Minister Rich Coleman said Tuesday.
Earlier this month
Quebec halted the use of so-called “fracking” technology, which involves
pumping large volumes of water, sand and chemicals into shale gas
deposits to fracture the rock and force the gas into collection pipes.
Several U.S. states, including New York, and France have also halted the
use of fracking over concerns that not enough is known about the
long-term effects of the extraction method.
A number of
jurisdictions have worried that the method may lead to the contamination
of groundwater supplies and there have been periodic complaints from
neighbours, including allegations of gas seeping from domestic water
taps.
But Coleman said B.C. gas extraction companies have been
using fracking for many years without problems and have to meet what he
termed “the world’s most stringent environmental regulations.”
“I’m
actually pretty comfortable with the maturity we have in this
particular field,” he said. “I have seen nothing to date that would tell
me that we are not out front on all the environmental issues compared
to other jurisdictions.”
Doug Bloom, the president of Spectra
Energy Transmission’s western division, says he doesn’t believe
“fracking” in B.C. is as much an environmental problem as it is one of
access to sufficient water supplies.
“We know it has become an
issue elsewhere, but frankly … fracking is not a new technology,” said
Bloom. “We’ve been fracturing wells in Western Canada for decades and to
my knowledge there haven’t been any problems associated with that.”
Spectra
Energy, a Fortune 500 company, has five natural gas-processing plants
in B.C. In North America it has more than 30,000 kilometres of
transmission lines and more than eight billion cubic metres of storage
capacity.
Natural gas is one of B.C.’s most valuable resources.
This year royalties from gas exploration will deliver nearly $1.4
billion into provincial coffers. Nearly a third of Canada’s entire
natural gas reserves are in B.C. But it comes with the use of technology
that some opponents and environmentalists say has yet to be proven.
The
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives suggested in a recent paper the
long-term effects of fracking have yet to be understood.
And in
the Peace region, a group of residents called the Peace Environmental
and Safety Trustees Society has asked the province for a formal inquiry
into the health effects from sour gas wells.
But Bloom said the
use of fracking in B.C.’s northeast gas fields “has more to do more with
the water supply” than any long-term environmental concern.
“The
bigger issue in British Columbia is water use, what water supplies you
will use for fracking. Increasingly, what we’re seeing producers do is
recycle water so that they can reuse it and not use as much.”
He said Spectra isn’t concerned about the technology’s safety.
“We worry to the extent that the debate is informed and that it is science and fact-based.”
But not everyone is convinced that fracking is environmentally harmless.
John Walker, president of FortisBC, thinks B.C. will likely have to look at the impacts of the technology at some point.
“There
is a challenge. I think it is a challenge [of] how you manage this from
a regulatory point of view,” said Walker, whose company is the largest
natural gas distributor in Western Canada.
“You have to manage
the environmental impacts as you go forward and that is absolutely one
of the challenges that we have to work with.”
Bloom and Walker
were part of a Vancouver Board of Trade panel Tuesday that looked at the
benefits and business opportunities of natural gas in B.C. Both believe
natural gas production will lead to the continued development of new
forms of use, particularly in the area of transportation.
Fracking
has in recent years led to the revival of natural gas exploration
because it has solved a problem that has long vexed companies: how to
unlock gas trapped in shale deposits.
Ten years ago when B.C.
began to seriously expand gas exploration, it had a 10-year supply of
gas reserves, Coleman said. Now it has more than 100 years of proven
reserves in the northeastern part of the province, the Horn River and
Montney Basin deposits, and that doesn’t even include new reserves being
developed in the Liard, he said.
But that same technology has
also led to the development of numerous shale gas reserves elsewhere in
North America, with the result that the U.S. also has a 100-year supply.
As a result, gas prices have plummeted from a high of about $14 to $4 per gigajoule.
Walker,
who is not opposed to fracking, said the moratoriums against it in
other jurisdictions may have an impact on B.C.’s market.
“If you
curtail the use of fracking, there is no doubt that is the technology
and methodology that drove the ability to exploit these shales.
“I think we are going to have to find a way to manage it.
“Life
is always about trade-offs, whether we build a hydroelectric dam and
dam a river, whether we put windmills in bird migration routes. We’re
trading on that balance we have to strike between energy policy, the
environmental policy and economic outcomes.”
Read original article
Gasland Filmmaker Josh Fox in Lethbridge: Solidarity, determination needed to halt fracking
From the Lethbridge Herald – March 25, 2011
by Sherri Gallant
Josh Fox, the Pennsylvania producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary
“Gasland,” told those assembled Thursday at a conference on fracking in
Lethbridge that stopping the controversial drilling practice will take
solidarity and determination.
The sought-after filmmaker explained
to the crowd – mostly First Nations people from the Blood Reserve – how
his movie began as a grassroots project that started when he was asked
to lease his land for natural gas. His investigations took him down a
road he hadn’t anticipated, and the project quickly evolved into a force
for change, the notoriety of which has brought him both praise,
criticism and outright attack.
Today, he’ll be filming segments in southern Alberta which could end up in the “Gasland” sequel he’s working on.
“These interviews were so compelling and the stories started to become
so vast, I started showing them to people, friends of mine, with a
little voiceover that sort of explained the situation, and they said,
‘what have you got your hands on here? You have the ‘Inconvenient Truth’
on your hands, you have to set some time aside and work on this.'”
It wasn’t an easy commitment to make. Fox’s film and theatre company had
several long-term projects on the go and the fracking iceberg showed
signs of being a hulking monster under the surface. But he knew he
couldn’t ignore it.
Hundreds of hours of interviews and 15 months
on the road later, the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival – an
immense coup.
“We were making a project for our friends, for our
neighbours, for our community, so that people could see what was
happening – and not just our community, but then our friends and
neighbours that we met in Colorado, and Wyoming, and Texas. So that they
had a resource, because information about what was happening with
hydraulic fracturing wasn’t available, it was scarce.
“Anyway, all of a sudden, everybody starts talking about fracking. The festival was a great success.”
Before long “Gasland” aired on HBO, was picked up in Canada, Australia
and the U.K. Fox has taken it on tour to 110 cities in all those
countries.
“I’ve witnessed such an unbelievable outpouring of
concern and support,” he said, “and resilience and integrity and dignity
on behalf of an enormous amount of people across the world. Hundreds of
thousands, if not millions who are right now directly in the crosshairs
of a huge natural gas development campaign that rivals anything that’s
ever happened before.
“I did find the same story again and again –
water contamination, air pollution, health problems, a sense that the
people had been lied to. And governments that were unresponsive to their
plights.”
People need to invest in and use renewable forms of energy, he said, and lobby their governments to make the same commitment.
“It’s no longer about ‘oh, don’t drive so much,’ or ‘conserve energy at
home.’ This is right here. It’s going to be a defining struggle for the
next 20 or 30 years. How do we get away from fossil fuels? We know we
have to. We can see what’s going on with climate change. We can see
what’s going on with all the toxic poisoning. The Gulf of Mexico.
Nuclear is the not the answer. The solar fields in Germany generate as
much power as that whole reactor in Japan.”
Every house, he said, can be its own power plant.
In a special naming ceremony after his talk, Fox was given the
Blackfoot name Ih Ka Mo Dahm (phonetic spelling), meaning survivor or
people who have survived. Elder Martin Eagle Child said it was chosen
not only because of the work Fox is doing, but because his father and
grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust.
The Blood Tribe
Conference on Fracking was organized by Kainai people in response to a
deal made by band chief and council with two oil companies to allow
fracking on two thirds of reserve lands. The deal came with a
$50-million signing bonus and potential for further revenue down the
road. A full slate of speakers throughout the day included Fiona
Lauridson, producer and director of the film “Burning Water,” which will
be screened tonight at 7 p.m. at the Lethbridge Public Library as part
of the International Film Festival.
Tribal officials have stated
they will go through every environmental step necessary to make sure the
drilling is safe. To date, no public notice has been made of any actual
applications to drill under the new agreement.
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