The other day in class we watched the movie Gasland. The movie was a real eye opener for anyone who doesn’t know about the horrible environmental effects that hydro fracking is having in our country. One fact that really stood out was that they claim that the U.S sits on an ocean of natural gas. The main character in the film Josh Fox goes all over the country interviewing the victims of the fracking industry. He lives in Pennsylvania, and his concern is that the gas industry is going to start fracking in his home town. He goes from town to town interviewing people who have had such horrible things happen to their home towns as a result of fracking. Many of the people he interviewed had undrinkable water because the methods used by the gas industry completely polluted the ground water supply. Many of these people complained, and tried to go after these big gas corporations for the damage that they did, but so far there has been little success in stopping these monsters. The ridiculous thing is that many of these people could actually light there tap water on fire because it was so saturated with things like methane gas. The amount of chemicals used in the Hydro fracking process is outrageous and many of them like formaldehyde are carcinogenic and hazardous in many other ways. The fact that the industry continues to get away with claiming that they haven’t caused any damage is just preposterous.
There is hope thankfully with strong advocates who are willing to fight against these corporate giants. At the forefront of this movement is Sandra Steingraber. She was the first person to look into the chemicals that the industry was using and she has been a strong female voice in the fight against them. Another extreme advocate for the people has been Theo Colburn. She identified the chemicals being used in fracking and made the public aware of their potential dangers.
It’s scary to think that people have allowed these corporate giants to make a profit at the expense of our beautiful planet. The money that can be made from this industry is huge and it would certainly help boost the economy, but money doesn’t replace the damage that will be done to our environment, and with no fresh water everyone will die. I am happy knowing that it has been banned in my home state of New York, but I have recently found out that they are storing the hazardous bi products under Seneca Lake.
