USA TODAY: Opinion by Josh Fox: “In April 2009, I was standing in Amee Ellsworth’s kitchen in Weld County, Colo., an area that was being drilled for natural gas. She was making sandwiches for me and my film crew and explaining how she had been showering in the dark for months, afraid that a spark from the overhead light bulb in her bathroom would light her water on fire and blow up her house. She could light her tap water on fire right out of the kitchen sink. The cause of what she described as “sheer terror” was hydraulic fracture-drilling, or fracking, for natural gas.
America is waking up to the slowly unfolding disaster of fracking, and not a second too soon. The controversial drilling practice, which has transformed gas drilling in the U.S. and abroad, is used to extract natural gas from rock formations by injecting huge amounts of water mixed with toxic and carcinogenic chemicals at such high pressures that it actually cracks apart underground formations.
The problem is that everywhere the gas drilling industry goes, a trail of water contamination, air pollution, health concerns and betrayal of basic American civic and community values follows. And with drilling happening in large swaths of residential and public lands in 34 states, a movement against fracking has sprung up in its wake.
I have spent the past three years investigating fracking for natural gas, and some of that journey can be seen in my Oscar-nominated film Gasland. Everyday the facts of fracking become clearer. The process is inherently contaminating, and no amount of regulation can make it safe for people living near or downriver from it. Chemicals used in the fracking fluid are turning up in groundwater in drilling areas from Colorado to Pennsylvania.
To drill a gas well, you have to drill through the water table. The industry claims that layers of concrete well casing ensure that no toxic chemicals or flammable methane gas can enter the aquifers we depend upon for safe drinking water. However, a rudimentary search of the data will tell you that one in 20 wells suffers an immediate failure of the concrete casing. The failure rate of casings (and of other parts of the well structure) only grows with age.
Methane and chemicals from the drilling process can be found in water wells near drilling all over the map, causing the remarkable phenomenon of water so contaminated that it actually catches fire at the kitchen tap. The more they drill, the more our drinking water becomes irreparably harmed. There is no easy way to clean an aquifer once it has been contaminated.
This is not an industry that will reform itself based on small regulatory steps. This is not an industry that can police itself or be counted on to protect public health. Neither states nor the federal government have the resources to enforce regulations when the industry shows no remorse, culpability or willingness to cooperate.
This is the wrong road forward for America. We cannot live in the growing gas lands. We should be investing in renewable energy technology that can provide America with energy as cheaply and far more safely than fracking.
I have heard stories like Amee Ellsworth’s thousands of times, in county after county, in state after state. The profound suffering of people like her not only should not be allowed to continue, it is an outrage that it is happening in America. Let’s continue to lead the world, and ban fracking now.
Josh Fox is the writer and director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Gasland.”
Senka
8 months ago
Way to go Josh. Let all the people of the world unite to form a force and voice so great that it can no longer be ignored.
Christine
7 months ago
I’m watching your documentary in Melbourne, Australia as we speak and am absolutely speechless. I work in the environment sector and had no idea that such an issue existed, or that it was so widespread. It’s just astounding that your government allows this to continue, and ever allowed it to occur in the first place.
I really hope that this documentary raises the kind of alarm bells it has in me across the USA, and in particular with the decision-makers in the USA to stop this from happening and ruining so many lives.
Gregg
7 months ago
In Australia today, July 8, 2011. they have shut down one of the under ground gas project.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/08/3264415.htm?section=justin
Thank you for telling your story so well I am sure it will make people sit up and think.
Lyndon
6 months ago
I saw your documentary, and was appalled at the extent and damage caused by these Energy companies. Here in Australia, the same thing seems to be going on, yet the stupid Politicians over here don’t seem to realise the irreverseable damage that is being done to the land, water table or for that matter the river systems.
Bearing in mind, this is where the drinking water flows from, after any rain, then is collected into the large Dams. This water, when contaminated, will be absolutely useless as drinking water, good for nothing more than washing your car with. As they have had major droughts in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia, with the promise of more to come in the near future, one would think that the last thing you would do, would be wanting to contaminate their supply of drinking and irrigation water, all for a few promised ‘bucks’. Let’s face it, when all is said and done, this is all about company profits, and to hell with the landowners, and the inhabitants, Flora and Fauna.
Then what happens during the next drought? Do the farmers use ‘well water’ again? I don’t think so, as it will be so contaminated from the toxic and carcinogenic Frakking fluids, that the farm stock on their land will all be poisoned should they do so.
Some may say people like myself with an opinion, are only ‘scaremongers’ when in actuality, we are only stating the facts. Are people so blind in this world,that they can’t see what is happening,or are they so bedazzled by the few tax dollars they get from this ‘mob’ that in the short term it won’t matter so much?
Well they should be concerned, as when their land is ‘buggered’ it won’t be much good for nothing, so the ‘mere pittance’ they are paid would not cover the long term damage. Imagine trying to live on a property with gas seeping up through the ground all over the place, and not knowing where it will break through the earth’s crust and topsoil next. The toxic nature of the chemicals combined with the methane gas will slowly kill off microbial activity in the soil and all that will be left will be a desert. I’m sure you if you are a smoker you will soon give up very quickly.
The only people that will pay for their land will be the gas companies. What people should know about this type of gas extraction is “WHAT THEY OUGHT TO KNOW BUT HAVEN’T BEEN TOLD” for fear of public backlash and projects being shut down immediately. It is what you are not told by the Energy Companies, and Politicians like the Ministers’ for Energy that should really worry you.
Politicians, well, in a manner of speaking may be excused for their ignorance, as they never tend to ‘properly check up the facts’,before they make such decisions, but are often bedazzled with a promise of more money to put into the coffers of their respective governments. This is often seen as a way of helping them get out of the ‘sh#t’, for making ‘those last stupid and costly decisions’.
They more or less believe what they are told by Mining and Petroleum and Gas companies, believing they will be leaving a legacy behind after their political careers have ended should they give the go-ahead to these projects.
Land owners should have a say in what goes on in their, and private properties, after all, “IT BELONGS TO THEM”, and not to the Energy Minister. He should “BUTT OUT”, and leave decisions concerning private property up to the property owner. If this were the case, I am sure that gas exploration on farms would not get the go ahead.
As for the Energy companies, knowing the damage that was most likely going to be caused, it is in their best interest not to mention anything that would halt their quest for profits during the exploration phase and during drilling.
I was aghast at the amount of gas seepage per day around that city in the USA, in Pensylvania I think it was, and which equated to the same amount of exhaust emissions from motor vehicles in that state per day. What about the Greenhouse effect that politicians are babbling about, when they allow this to go on. In this small area there were 1500 gas wells, but more gas was escaping into the atmosphere than was being trapped for use. I can not even begin to work out how one would calculate the amount of lost gas spread throughout the USA into the atmosphere from Gas Frakking. Greenhouse gases, for those Environment Ministers whom pretend to be doing all they can for their portfolios. You want to stop the Greenhouse gas, and save the Barrier Reef and the Arctic and Antarctic ice shelves, along with all those Pacific Island Nations, then do it by enacting legislation like the USA to stop this mindless Gas Extraction Method. To them and the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, I say pull your finger out of your “A*se” and do the bloody job your constituents put you in there to do, and that is “manage this country”, and stop selling it off in the name of progress. You can’t eat gas, or grow crops in the soil it has killed off, much less run farm animals on areas where the Frakking chemicals have leached through to the surface.
The Executives of these Gas Energy Companies stated to the US Senate Inquiry Committee that the chemicals used were perfectly harmless when consumed, yet when they were given a glass of water from the affected areas to drink, they declined, one and all. This action spoke volumes about how safe it was to drink. Enough said.
Kimberley Clemens
3 months ago
It is time, this is the biggest single issue that has ever existed on the planet, this is a new war and it is a war that must be won by the good side. We all need to unify on this and let the bad guys know…
YOU CAN’T FRACK WITH US.
Emily Arlidge
3 months ago
Life changed!
Merina
5 days ago
Gud article, I really hope that this documentary raises the kind of alarm bells it has in me across the USA, and in particular with the decision-makers in the USA to stop this from happening and ruining so many lives.