!['Gasland' documentary should be required viewing for Pa. legislators]( "'Gasland' documentary should be required viewing for Pa. legislators")
Published: Sunday, June 20, 2010, 10:27 AM
It never occurred to us to test whether water from our home faucets could light on fire until we watched the documentary “Gasland.”
In scene after scene, director and Pennsylvania native Josh Fox speaks with families who live near natural gas drilling sites. their water is so contaminated that when they hold a lighter to their kitchen or bathroom sink faucet, it catches fire.
The families Fox encounters live throughout America from Texas to Wyoming to Pennsylvania.
In the most chilling scenes in the film, Fox travels to Dimock where the water that comes out of the kitchen sinks of several homes is so black you don’t even have to wait for him to say the obvious, “I wouldn’t drink this.”
Every state legislator in Pennsylvania should be required to see the film “Gasland.”
It airs at 9 p.m. Monday on HBO.
This month, a special preview screening was held for legislators at the state Capitol. About 75 people attended, but only one legislator, according to the event organizers.
Don’t get us wrong, this newspaper supports natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania and understands the economic boom it is to the state.
We also believe that most natural gas companies try to do the right thing. Problematic gas flares like the one in Clearfield County on June 11 are costly to the company just as they are to the local environment.
But the kind of deep hydraulic fracturing that is occurring in the Marcellus Shale will not be without consequences. The process requires blasting water and sand through mile-deep earth to shake it up and release the gas. there are no barriers underground. When the shaking up occurs, it can contaminate nearby areas, including groundwater sources.
The state must do all it can to ensure Penn’s woods are still beautiful to walk in and our water supplies are drinkable as the gas is extracted. Otherwise this great “boom” to the economy will be our biggest long-term bust.
Pennsylvania needs regulations on the millions of gallons of wastewater that are put back into our streams and on the many pipelines soon to be constructed.
We also need a severance tax to ensure companies pay their fair share for the infrastructure and environmental monitoring and repair.
If we have learned anything from watching the BP disaster in the Gulf, it’s that you don’t want to regret later the fact that no one was overseeing what was going on.
The film “Gasland” tells the story of several Pennsylvania families who don’t have the funds to travel to the capital to speak out.
And these people aren’t alone.
Director Josh Fox has taken the film on a mini “grassroots tour” this month throughout the Marcellus Shale region, a place he knows well from growing up in rural Pennsylvania.
He told the viewing audience at Dickinson College that “people show up to the screenings with contaminated water supplies. They give them to me and say ‘Please help me test this.’”
These are Pennsylvanians.
All legislators, Republican and Democrat, must seek to understand the full Marcellus Shale picture.
The recently enacted water regulations restricting the amount of total dissolved solids allowed in wastewater were the right first step, but there is a lot more to the process.
We have a precious resource in this state, but the most precious resource of all is our people.
'Gasland' documentary should be required viewing for Pa. legislators
