Who is up to separating truth from fiction?????
Plot Summary for
GasLand (2010) More at IMDbPro »
ad feedbackIt is happening all across America-rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from an energy company wanting to lease their property. Reason? The company hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas." Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground-a hydraulic drilling process called "fracking"-and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower. Written by Sundance Film Festival
GasLand (2010)
Josh Fox makes his mainstream debut with his fictional rant film targeting natural gas – but how much of it is actually true?"
One glaring error in the film is the suggestion that gas drilling led to the September fish kill at Dunkard Creek in Greene County. That was determined to have been caused by a golden algae bloom from coal mine drainage, (from CONSOL Energy discharge), NOT natural gas drilling.
Attached below are 2 reports from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The Commission investigated the Markham and McClure water wells, each referenced in the movie Gasland. Sample results showed that the water wells contained naturally occurring biogenic methane gas. In each case, the Commission found that the complaints were unrelated to oil and gas activities.
For an avant-garde filmmaker and stage director whose previous work has been recognized by the “Fringe Festival” of New York City, HBO’s decision to air the GasLand documentary nationwide later this month represents Josh Fox’s first real foray into the mainstream – and, with the potential to reach even a portion of the network’s 30 million U.S. subscribers, a potentially significant one at that.
But with larger audiences and greater fanfare come the expectation of a few basic things: accuracy, attention to detail, and original reporting among them. Unfortunately, in the case of this film, accuracy is too often pushed aside for simplicity, evidence too often sacrificed for exaggeration, and the same old cast of characters and anecdotes – previously debunked – simply lifted from prior incarnations of the film and given a new home in this one.
“I’m sorry,” Josh Fox once told a New York City magazine, “but art is more important than politics. … Politics is people lying to you and simplifying everything; art is about contradictions.” And so it is with GasLand: politics at its worst, art at its most contrived, and contradictions of fact found around every bend of the river. Against that backdrop, we attempt below to identify and correct some of the most egregious inaccuracies upon which the film is based (all quotes are from Josh Fox, unless otherwise noted):
DEBUNKING GasLand THE MOVIE
Plot Summary for
GasLand (2010) More at IMDbPro »
ad feedbackIt is happening all across America-rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from an energy company wanting to lease their property. Reason? The company hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas." Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground-a hydraulic drilling process called "fracking"-and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower. Written by Sundance Film Festival
GasLand (2010)
Josh Fox makes his mainstream debut with his fictional rant film targeting natural gas – but how much of it is actually true?"
One glaring error in the film is the suggestion that gas drilling led to the September fish kill at Dunkard Creek in Greene County. That was determined to have been caused by a golden algae bloom from coal mine drainage, (from CONSOL Energy discharge), NOT natural gas drilling.
Attached below are 2 reports from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The Commission investigated the Markham and McClure water wells, each referenced in the movie Gasland. Sample results showed that the water wells contained naturally occurring biogenic methane gas. In each case, the Commission found that the complaints were unrelated to oil and gas activities.
For an avant-garde filmmaker and stage director whose previous work has been recognized by the “Fringe Festival” of New York City, HBO’s decision to air the GasLand documentary nationwide later this month represents Josh Fox’s first real foray into the mainstream – and, with the potential to reach even a portion of the network’s 30 million U.S. subscribers, a potentially significant one at that.
But with larger audiences and greater fanfare come the expectation of a few basic things: accuracy, attention to detail, and original reporting among them. Unfortunately, in the case of this film, accuracy is too often pushed aside for simplicity, evidence too often sacrificed for exaggeration, and the same old cast of characters and anecdotes – previously debunked – simply lifted from prior incarnations of the film and given a new home in this one.
“I’m sorry,” Josh Fox once told a New York City magazine, “but art is more important than politics. … Politics is people lying to you and simplifying everything; art is about contradictions.” And so it is with GasLand: politics at its worst, art at its most contrived, and contradictions of fact found around every bend of the river. Against that backdrop, we attempt below to identify and correct some of the most egregious inaccuracies upon which the film is based (all quotes are from Josh Fox, unless otherwise noted):
DEBUNKING GasLand THE MOVIE