Gasland Documentary, Case Study Example

The subject of this film is natural gas extraction. The process used is called hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking. It is told from the point of view of the filmmaker, Josh Fox, who released the film in 2010. In the film he describes the environmental destruction caused by fracking by interviewing his neighbors and other landowners around the country affected by natural gas drilling. Fox also has a personal point of view to express: he was offered $100,000 to lease land his family owns in Milanville, Pennsylvania. His point of view is obviously negative: he is against fracking. There is nothing in the film that would make a viewer favor the practice.

There are three major global issues in the film. One is the most obvious: the environmental cost of natural resource exploitation, in this case natural gas. The second global issue is the rural-people-versus-industry theme. Many of the people interviewed have distinct rural and/or southern accents. The viewer is left with the impression that most of America’s rural residents are poor and relatively ignorant. They are up against gas-drilling corporations with lots of money and lawyers. The third global theme is that of governmental indifference to the plight of the rural residences affect by fracking. Local, state, and even the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency seem either helpless or unwilling to resist corporations. Viewers are left with the impression that corporate money is stronger than government.

The externalities in the film are harder to find. I think there are three main ones: 1) when Fox tried to interview a company representative, who declines on camera; 2) film footage of a TV news story in which a rural couple in Colorado are interviewed about gas in their water (which just mirrors Fox’s own film); and 3) the use of banjo music to connect rural life conflicting with the outside world. It’s the Deliverance (1972) effect, one still known to makers of rural-themed films today, according to the makers of 2010’s Winter’s Bone. This effect is reversed in The Truth About Gasland (ANGA). It’ s own music track is also country-mountain themed. It features a mandolin instead of a banjo, which gives it a friendlier feel.

Five interesting points about the film are: 1) the people complaining – many or most of them must have agreed to allow the drilling in exchange for pay. It’s not true that the drillers just came in and took over. To what extent are the residents responsible? This is unaddressed in the film; 2) the editors use quick-cuts during interviews. Usually today, film cuts are indicated with a blurring effect or a deliberate rough-cut so the viewer can see the edit; 3) the film doesn’t address if the drilling company’s own employees and stockholders are opposed to fracking. But those people must have an opinion; 4) the film doesn’t directly address how old this problem is, although the issue does surface during interviews. So my question is: does the widespread pollution of water due to natural-gas drilling predate fracking? 5) Is the pollution of drinking water caused by the injection of chemicals inevitable after fracking? Or is the pollution caused by natural gas forced into the water? Or is it both? I’m not sure the film answers these questions. What it does is provide compelling examples of water with something wrong with it. Residents are shown who can light on fire water that otherwise looks clean, or who have obviously dirty water coming out of their taps. In one case, water in a open tank that looks dirty like such water would (like in a horse’s trough) and is also flammable.

Having researched point #5, I think that there are no firm conclusions to come to yet. I found two representative articles. One of them, from National Public Radio, is dated December 8, 2011: EPA Connects ‘Fracking’ To Water Contamination (Shogren, 2011). It reports that in the case of a location in Pavillion, Wyoming, the problem seemed to be fracking chemicals that had gotten into the water table. However, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), which conducted the investigation, stressed that the water table in this case was unusually near the fracking level. In other locations the fracking is done much deeper than the water. The company doing the drilling, Encana, responded that the chemicals (benzene, methane, and others) were naturally occurring. It also suggested that the EPA introduced the chemicals accidentally. These responses in my opinion lend credence to the EPA’s conclusions.

Another article I found came to the opposite conclusion (Lustgarten, 2011). Duke University scientists tested 68 drinking-water wells in the Marcellus and Utica areas of Pennsylvania and New York. The problem to be examined was whether methane gas, being freed from rock by the fracking, is leaking into the watertable and exiting taps, where residents can light it on fire. The study found that 60 of the wells were tested for dissolved gas. It was found that most of the wells had some methane, but that the wells closest to the drilling had the worst levels, in some cases 17 times higher than wells further away. It is noteworthy that this study did not find that fracking chemicals had leaked into the water. The article did not make a point of excluding pollution from wells already in place, or that were drilled without fracking.

This article did much to educate me in ways the film either couldn’t or wouldn’t. The methane could be leaking from old wells, or wells with casing cracks. And (as the film points out) there is biogenic methane that occurs in water naturally, and thermogenic methane that originates at the levels that fracking takes place. Both kinds are being found in polluted areas.

After reading these articles, I learned that the problem is much more complex than presented in the film, which I now think is informative but biased. I think it is well-intentioned propaganda that serves a good purpose. But viewers should be warned to learn more on the Web.

Works Cited

ANGA. (2012). The Truth About Gasland. Youtube.com.

Lustgarten, Abrahm. (2011). Scientific Study Links Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking. ProPublica. Web.

Shogren, Elizabeth. (2011). EPA Connects ‘Fracking’ To Water Contamination. NPR. Web.