The following is a film report I recently wrote for a geography class, Contemporary Issues in Environmental Studies.
Film Title: Gasland
Year: 2010
Length: 1 hr 47 min
When viewing the
documentary Gasland you might feel as
if you are looking into a dystopian alternate reality. Undrinkable tap water that comes out brown
and can be lit on fire by a lighter, animals losing their fur and dying, families
barely able to cope with near constant illness, and cover ups and denial by
corporations profiting from exploitation of the land. These are just some of the shocking sights
you’ll see in the film. But the most
shocking fact is that it is not dystopian fiction you’re watching, but actual
scenes from rural America.
The film, directed,
starring, and largely shot by Josh Fox, follows the filmmaker’s journey through
what he calls Gasland, portions of the United States where natural gas
drilling, and in particular of hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking” – the process
of injecting liquids to break up rock formations to obtain fuel), is
prevalent. The story begins after Fox
receives a letter from a natural gas company offering him nearly 100,000
dollars to lease his land in Pennsylvania for drilling. Skeptical of what he may be getting in to, he
investigates areas near him where fracking is already taking place, and to his
horror discovers families whose drinking water has begun to look and taste
strange, with some even claiming that they can light theirs on fire. This prompts a journey to areas in
mid-America, including Colorado, Wyoming, and Texas, where fracking is
undergoing a boom, to document the negative effects on health and the
environment of the practice. Fox
chronicles numerous horrifying examples of contaminated drinking water, sickness,
polluted natural areas, and disgruntled landowners. The film concludes with a visit to
congressional subcommittee hearing where a bill to repeal exemptions for
fracking in the Safe Drinking Water Act is being considered. Here we see natural gas representatives
blatantly denying any significant harm to the environment or human health from
fracking (Gasland, 2010).
The strength of Gasland as a film lies largely in its
shock value and emotional tug. Unlike
many other environmental documentaries that use fact after fact, and carefully
placed interviews and animated diagrams to build a case , the film takes the
viewer deep into the trenches by showing firsthand the real life problems that
are taking place. But herein also lies
its greatest weakness. Any detractor of
the film can easily comment that the incidences it showcases are extreme
examples or have not been proven to be linked to fracking. In fact, it’s hard not to be at least
somewhat skeptical with the radically bleak portrait Fox paints of life in the
land he calls Gasland.
So how accurate,
really, are the implications of the film?
Not surprisingly, natural gas companies have denied its credibility
outright. Due to the film’s breakout
success, many companies publically criticized it, and a short, industry-backed
documentary called Truthland was even
produced to rebut its truthfulness (Fang, 2013). However, studies on the impacts of fracking
show that the danger is very much real.
Probably the risk of
fracking that Gasland relies on most
to build its case is contamination of drinking water. Though fracking companies may consistently
deny the danger of this happening, a comprehensive report on the impacts of
fracking on drinking water resources in the US released by the EPA in 2016
found that a variety of factors in the fracking process can potentially and
have been found in some cases to impact the quality of drinking water, ranging
in severity from “temporary changes in water quality to contamination that made
private drinking water wells unusable” (United States, 2016: 2). These factors, in which fracking fluid or
waste was found to lead to contamination of drinking water, included many of
the ones suggested in the film, including spills, leaks from wells, and
discharge into surface waters (United States, 2016). So fracking without a doubt poses at least
some risk to drinking water, and thus human health.
Another major
implication of the film, though receiving much less focus, is the effect of
fracking on wildlife. Fox meets one
woman who says she has found dead animals near a fracking well and has frozen
them as evidence. Animals dropping dead
around fracking areas is certainly alarming, but does it really happen? One recent study of the biotic impacts of
fracking related energy development found that although there is significant
gaps in research on these effects, there are significant threats to wildlife
including surface and groundwater contamination, air pollution, and habitat
loss (Souther et al., 2014). This
provides just more evidence for the possibility of serious negative impacts of
fracking.
The possibility of
negative impacts on the environment is probably not surprising to most
people. The shocking thing that Gasland seems to imply is just how
frequent and severe these impacts are.
Here the scientific consensus is less clear. Both of the studies mentioned above call for
further research to better understand the overall impacts of fracking. According the EPA report, “significant data
gaps and uncertainties in the available data” prevented broad estimations of
frequency and severity of impacts (United States, 2016: 2). So in other words, we can’t say for
sure. At very least then, Fox’s
implications cannot be fully proven, and it’s probably also safe to say that his dystopian portrait of fracking
areas is an intentional exaggeration meant to shock the viewer into alarm. Sure, the individual cases he looks at could
be legitimate, but are the effects as severe and widespread as the film
implies? Probably not, or else the US
would have a major national crisis on its hands.
This is where Gasland finds its weakest footing. However, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t
treat the film as the wakeup call it’s meant to be. It’s not surprising that studies are
expressing uncertainty about negative impacts of fracking. After all, it’s always the role of the
scientist to err on the side of caution. What we should be concerned about is
that these studies warn that there are serious impacts attached to fracking
that could legitimately occur. Sometimes
we don’t need to wait for absolute conformation. Gasland
takes these serious risks and translates them into a riveting narrative
that’s accessible for the average viewer.
The film, in fact,
barely scratches the surface of the legitimate problems with fracking. Fox sticks pretty close to the issue of
environmental contamination of nearby areas.
He doesn’t even touch on the economic issues with the boom and bust
cycle, dangers to well workers, physical degradation of the land, or the much
larger problem of fracking’s contribution to climate change. Perhaps a more conventional documentary could
have incorporated all these factors. Gasland, however, has no intention of
being conventional, or even entirely accurate.
Its aim is more like that of a thriller set in a dystopian future, a
cautionary tale of what could be if the worst of humanity is seen through that
will shake you to your bones. At this it
excels.
Bibliography
Gasland. Directed by Josh
Fox. USA: HBO Documentary Films, 2010. DVD.
Fang, Lee. "The Fracking Industry's
Dishonest Response to 'Gasland'" The Nation. November 18, 2013. Accessed April 11, 2017.
Souther, Sara , Morgan W. Tingly, Viorel D. Propescu,
David TS Hayman, Maureen E. Ryan, Tabitha
A. Graves, Brett Hartyl, and Kimberly Terrell. "Biotic impacts of energy development
from shale: research priorities and knowledge gaps." Frontiers in
Ecology and the Environment 12,
no. 6 (August 1, 2014): 330-38. Accessed April 12, 2017. doi:10.1890/130324.
United States. United States Environmental
Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. Hydraulic
fracturing for oil and gas: impacts from the hydraulic fracturing water cycle on drinking water resources in
the United States: Executive Summary. Washington,
DC. Accessed April 11, 2017. United States Environmental Protection Agency.