"Gasland" Review

Josh Fox's documentary film Gasland was screened on HBO in June 2010.  It won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival last January and garnered positive reviews from many publications, including Variety, The Washington Post, and USA Today.  The film deals specifically with hydraulic fracturing and attempts to expose contamination and health problems caused by this process.  It draws in the viewer emotionally with no shortage of personal accounts and disturbing images of extreme health problems and hardship and attributes these things to hydraulic fracturing.

I was taken in at first viewing by the film's grip; Fox's humorous observations coupled with the distressing tales of dying wildlife and brain tumors made for a compelling narrative.  To most viewers, it will be an eye-opening film experience to watch Fox travel from his small hometown in eastern Pennsylvania to desolate western prairies in search of answers.  His personality shines through, making this beautifully shot film feel less of an exposé and more of a quest to protect his homeland.

The narrative begins when Mr. fox receives a letter offering him $100,000 in exchange for a company to explore natural gas drilling opportunities on his property.  Progressing with what seems a calculated 

naivete, Fox begins exploring what drilling has done to locals nearby, such as those in the town of Dimmick, PA.  What he finds is a community in anger over the contamination of their water supply, which they blame on the relatively new drilling, and rumors of flammable water.

Deciding this is worth more exploration, Fox leaps in his car and heads out west, where he learns more about hydraulic fracturing and interviews people who can see numerous drilling pads from their front porch.  Stories abound of contaminated wells, chronic headaches, spoiled creeks and polluted air.  He finds numerous taps that are easily set on fire, films sick and dying livestock, and examines the process and equipment utilized in the drilling.  It can be at times gruesome and creepy, such as the frozen animals one lady keeps as evidence, to sad, such as the footage of endangered species that migrate among the new drilling pads.  Fox's dry humor and subdued anger help to tie all the stories together to create a cohesive narrative.

Fox plays the banjo with drilling pads and the Grand Tetons in the background

As with many documentaries that condemn a group or practice, Gasland has fallen under considerable criticism.  Natural gas companies, predictably, complain that the film is sensationalist and misleading.  On Energy in Depth, which is sponsored by these companies, especially Chesapeake Energy, they take Fox to town on many aspects of the documentary, many of which are worth noting.  Gasland misleads the viewer to believe that hydraulic fracturing is not regulated, but it should say that it is not federally regulated (due to the "Halliburton Loophole" which exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act).  Additionally, EID claims that Fox completely made up the section about the endangered antelope, which was particularly memorable.  

The page of criticism (linked above) is extremely lengthy and detailed and strikes quite a bit of doubt on the validity of Fox's film as a whole.  This, of course, was the intention, besides clearing up the real mistakes.  In my opinion, however, Gasland relies the most on the personal accounts of sick residents that have been affected by their polluted water, and I do not believe Chesapeake or any other company can convince me that those were not legitimate stories.  Fox may have distorted some aspects of reality, which is entirely inappropriate in a documentary, but the fact remains that this is a serious issue that requires scientific attention.

Gasland does not delve into any economic benefits that the citizens may have reaped from allowing drilling on their land, but that was not Fox's goal.  He set out to expose what natural gas companies are doing all over the country, and to make everyone, from the ordinary citizen to our lawmakers, consider the ugly consequences.  These companies appear to be out of control and extremely powerful, and this engaging documentary heightens these elements for dramatic effect.

If you watch Gasland without an emotional reaction, consider watching it again.  The film is full of intimate stories alongside solid evidence that the process of extracting this precious gas is dangerous.  One of these can be shown quite simply in the following pictures, which depict the same scene of a condensate tank on a drilling pad.  

Condensate tank through normal camera

Condensate tank through infrared camera

To the left is the tank with a normal camera, while the image below depicts the same scene through an infrared camera.  Clouds of toxins billow into the air, polluting the air for anyone living near these pads.









Gasland is available for pre-order on the film's website.  The trailer can be found below.

GASLAND Trailer 2010

Hydraulic Fracturing & Horizontal Drilling ... in (somewhat) technical terms

The most significant scholarly article (cited by 582 other scholars, according to Google Scholar) on hydraulic fracturing was published in 1972 in the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Journal by M.K. Hubbert and D.G. Willis.  This was a technical article that theorized that the most efficient fractures should be made perpendicular to the axis of least stress, that this axis should be horizontal, and that therefore the fractures would be vertical.  Such conclusions had a strong influence on the modern methods of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

Today these processes are highly computerized and specified to the conditions in which the well is being drilled.  Computer simulations that incorporate information about the thickness of shale, rock fracturing characteristics, and more are carried out before any drilling takes place.  The enormous natural gas industry has developed these models in order to drill more economically and safely.  Additionally, these elements are constantly being monitored, or are reported monitored, to ensure that everything goes smoothly and that any errors are immediately rectified.

Horizontal drilling is fairly easy to understand in contrast with vertical drilling.  Both methods extend into the shale formation deep below the surface, but horizontal wells curve once they reach the shale.  By continuing further into the shale at a horizontal angle, the well exponentially increases surface area and employs the principles laid down by Hubbert and Willis.  While horizontal wells can cost $2.5 million or more (as opposed to $800,000 for vertical wells), they have far greater efficiency in producing the gas.  Horizontal wells may be developed to extend 2,000 to 6,000ft into the rock formation, in contrast with vertical wells, which could as little as 50ft of exposure.  This not only increases efficiency, but it also reduces the number of physical wells and "pads" (from which there may be several wells) on the surface.  Such a process maximizes production while minimizing infrastructure associated with drilling (such as roads and pipelines) and the loss of aesthetic disruptions to the landscape.  "The spacing for vertical well completions in the Marcellus are predicted to start on 40 acre spacing, while horizontal well are predicted to be spaced at intervals closer to 160 acres," according to J. Daniel Arthur, illustrating how preferable horizontal drilling may be to those concerned about aesthetics.

But what exactly is hydraulic fracturing?  It is a process by which the shale formation is stimulated to fracture beyond the extent that it would simply by drilling into the rock, and to help the gas overcome barriers that might prevent it from being captured.  This is done by pumping millions of gallons of fracturing fluids into the well, the majority of which end up remaining in the ground.  Fracturing fluid is made up almost entirely by water and the other largest ingredient is sand.  The remaining fraction of the liquid contains many chemicals that assist in breaking down layers of shale to release the maximum quantities of natural gas.

These chemicals are one of the main points of contention with the process.  Until September 2010, natural gas companies were not required to disclose the content of these chemicals, because they claimed them to be intellectual property.  As stated in my previous entry, the EPA recently ordered these companies to provide that information as the first step in the latest investigation into hydraulic fracturing.  Some authors, such as Arthur, assert that significant quantities of rock separate the shale from drinking water reservoirs so as to negate the claim that hydrofracking pollutes drinking water.  He states that "in some parts of the Marcellus Shale production area there is as much as 7,000ft of sedimentary rock strata ... between the Marcellus and the shallow groundwater system in parts of the Appalachian Basin."  According to him, the chemicals, regardless of their toxicity, are unlikely to pollute underground drinking water systems.

As will be noted in the discussion of Gasland, however, there is considerable concern that the fracturing fluids that do return to the earth's surface will not be disposed of properly.  Gasland attempts to depict an irresponsible industry that dumps the excess water into existing aqua systems.  Not only that, but the personal testimonies and physical evidence of tap water makes a case that Arthur's conclusion may not be accurate. 

The main problem with this issue is the lack of reliable information, which has been and will continue to be my goal to seek out.  The 2004 EPA study was taken to task by Hannah J. Wiseman in 2008 with her 55 page article, which casts considerable doubt on the EPA's findings.  In fact, the current efforts of the EPA to investigate further points to their own doubts as to the legitimacy of the findings.  Industry publications, however, insist that the practice is safe, and the EPA's 2004 study was used to push through legislation that exempted the process from the Safe Drinking Water Act.  There is even less information, therefore, about the chemicals employed, because the government is not regulating it as stringently as many believe it should.  One such group is the Environment American Research and Policy Center, which released an article written by Michael Berkowitz detailing the numerous health hazards associated with many known fracking chemicals.

Further entries will investigate these allegations of health risks.  The facts remain, however, that hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling greatly increase the efficiency of drilling for natural gas and that they are essential for the economically feasible production of natural gas.  Understanding the actual process of hydraulic fracturing is helpful to unravel the causes for concern.

Bibliography:

Arthur, J Daniel, Bohm, Brian, Layne, Mark, et all.  “Hydraulic Fracturing Considerations for Natural Gas Wells of the Marcellus Shale.”  The Ground Water Protection Council 2008 Annual Forum.  21-24 September 2008.  Presentation.  Web. 12 October 2010.

Berkowitz, Michael.  “Toxic Chemicals on Tap: How Natural Gas Drilling Threatens Drinking Water.”  Environment America Research and Policy Center.  November 2009.  Web.  12 October 2010.

Hubbert, M.K. and Willis, D.G.  "Mechanics of Hydraulic Fracturing."  American Association of Petroleum Geologists Journal.  1 December 1972.  pages 239-257.

Wiseman, Hannah J.  “Untested Waters: The Rise of Hydraulic Fracturing in Oil and Gas Production and the Need to Revisit Regulation”  (September 23, 2008). Fordham Environmental Law Review, Vol. 20, p. 115, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1595092

Zeller, Tom.  “E.P.A. to Study Chemicals Used to Tap Natural Gas.”  The New York Times.  9 September 2010.  Web. 10 October 2010.

An Historic Overview

Most people have never heard of hydraulic fracturing, despite the fact that the industry estimates that 90% of operating natural gas wells in the United States rely on it.  With more than 450,000 wells, that's a lot of hydraulic fracturing going on!  Enormous formations of shale found under Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Ohio, Wyoming, West Virginia, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New York and more all contain deposits of natural gas.  By extracting these deposits through the process of hydraulic fracturing (also called "fracking" or "hydrofracking"), companies are able to tap an energy resource that is much cleaner than other major sources, such as the burning of coal and oil.  Some also argue that drilling for natural gas can boost the economy of areas otherwise in financial hardship.  This sounds great, right?  Well unfortunately, fracking has become a controversial issue due to complaints about contamination of drinking water and lack of proper regulation.

This blog attempts to provide the reader with a sound overview of the issue, the major stakeholders, and news about developments in the current decision New York faces of whether to allow hydrofracturing in the state.  By analyzing popular, scientific and media texts that deal with this issue, my aim is to inform anyone with an interest and make information that might otherwise be difficult to find within easy reach.

Though the theory surrounding hydraulic fracturing of shale formations has been in existence since the mid-1900s, recent technological advances has caused an explosion of wells that utilize the process.  Between 1998 and 2007, the Barnett Shale play in Texas has experienced a 3000% growth rate.  This is just one example among many of the shale plays in the mid-west and west that have grown staggeringly active in the last decade.  The Barnett Shale is extremely productive, despite its relatively small size of roughly 5,000 square miles.  The Marcellus Shale, which extends from Ohio and West Virginia all the way through Pennsylvania to western New York, has a 95,000 square mile area.  Estimates of maximum recoverable gas volumes, therefore, are six to eight times greater than that of the Barnett Shale.  Consequentially, the Marcellus Shale is of principle interest to natural gas companies.

Source: Arthur, J. Daniel.  "Hydraulic Fracturing..." (See below)

Due to its geographic location, the Marcellus Shale is particularly important in its potential to supply energy to large cosmopolitan areas.  Cities such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New York are extremely close to where potential drilling is possible, while Washington D.C. and Boston are not much further.  As energy costs continue to rise, it seems logical to look for sources of energy that are as close to home as possible.  Likewise, with the threat of climate change growing more grievous every day, finding cleaner sources of energy should be of prime importance.

Drilling for natural gas has existed for years in the region.  The shoreline of Lake Erie, for instance, had abundant shallow wells by the turn of the 20th Century that supplied lighting and heat to residents there.  Hydraulic fracturing, however, is a necessary process in order to produce economic volumes of natural gas.  The process of horizontal drilling, posed to become even more widespread should NYS allow drilling, is also a key factor in obtaining vast amounts of gas from the formations.  Both of these terms will be given in-depth, scientific consideration in the next entry.

In recent years, hydraulic fracturing has come under considerable criticism, particularly in regards to the pollution of ground water.  Though the 2004 study conducted by the EPA concluded that the process posed no risk to public health (a fact which is cited over and over on industry-supported sites such as this), many reports have indicated otherwise.  In June 2010 HBO aired a documentary called Gasland, which provides numerous examples of individuals and families that have become seriously affected by the explosion of natural gas drilling.  That film will be analyzed in greater detail in entries to come.  As a result of this backlash, the EPA is set to conduct a more thorough investigation of the chemicals employed by drilling companies, and of the environmental risks associated with the process as a whole.

With these concerns in mind, the New York State Senate recently passed a moratorium which prevents new licenses to drill from being issued until May 15, 2011.  The hope is that a more comprehensive study of the ecological and safety concerns will be carried out before that date.  Sadly, the EPA estimates that their new study will likely not have publishable results until 2012.  As the issue becomes more urgent and timely, the need for the public to understand the potential risks and benefits does as well.  All humans and animals within drilling areas could be affected if fracking does indeed pose a danger to drinking water and public health.   It is, therefore, a universally important issue.

Bibliography:

Arthur, J Daniel, Bohm, Brian, Layne, Mark, et all.  “Hydraulic Fracturing Considerations for Natural Gas Wells of the Marcellus Shale.”  The Ground Water Protection Council 2008 Annual Forum.  21-24 September 2008.  Presentation.  Web. 12 October 2010.

Spigelmyer, Dave.  “An Open Letter to the State of New York.”  Elmira Star Gazette.  Web.  12 October 2010.

Wiseman, Hannah J.  “Untested Waters: The Rise of Hydraulic Fracturing in Oil and Gas Production and the Need to Revisit Regulation”  (September 23, 2008). Fordham Environmental Law Review, Vol. 20, p. 115, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1595092 

Zeller, Tom.  “E.P.A. to Study Chemicals Used to Tap Natural Gas.”  The New York Times.  9 September 2010.  Web. 10 October 2010.