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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