COMMENTARY The Price We Pay For Energy

NEW FILM ‘GASLAND’ MEANT TO DRILL INTO OUR CONSCIENCE

— Afriend of mine has a small sign in her guest room that says, “Be nice or go home.”

Wouldn’t life be easy if dealing with miscreants was as simple as those five short words, or if as individuals and as a society, we were bound by the simple notion of telling the truth.

Louis Meeks, a Wyoming rancher interviewed in the documentary “Gasland,” spoke volumes about truth saying, “If your word ain’t no good, you ain’t no good.”

Meeks is featured in this must-see independent film, which will be in Fayetteville, showing at 7 p.m. on Aug. 19 at the Continuing Education/ Global Campus auditorium on the northeast side of the square. Josh Fox, writer and producer of “Gasland,” will be there to answerquestions following his film, which takes viewers along on his journey across the U.S. seeking information about how people, land and water have been affected by gas drilling practices.

His odyssey begins in his own backyard, but before it’s over, you understand why Meeks and others feel cheated, lied to, and betrayed by the gas industry, their politicians and their country.

In at least 34 states, the drilling for natural gas into deep strata of shale frequently has required a process called “fracking,” which means fracturing rock so the gas within it is released. This is done under great pressure using millions of gallons of fresh water combined with various secret recipes of chemicals and sands, some of which return to the surface.

Therein lies the crunch.

Industry’s proprietary technical information does not have to be shared, so citizens are excluded from knowing what they are being exposed to, or what is being done on or beneath their land when minerals, which they may not even own, are extracted.

We all are using these resources, and we need to know where we fit in the chain of responsibility, from the drilling to the consumption of these fossil fuels. Also, we need to know what we are allowing to be done to others while the industry continues some of the practices shown in “Gasland.”

This is an Arkansas problem because in the middle of our state, theFayetteville shale is deep enough and under enough pressure for massive gas production. Thousands of wells are being fracked;

millions of gallons of water are being taken out of the ecosystems, polluted and then disposed of in less than safe ways; compressors roar all day and night;

condensation tanks leak air pollutants; pipelines carve across many miles;

drilling pads are springing up like dandelions; and state roads are being broken down. The severance tax on gas production that the state gets is a fraction of what damage to highways is costing taxpayers, but the worst part of the story is that the toxins in the fracking brew are extremely dangerous to humans and animals. Once again, health loss is subsidizing private gain.

Some friends of mine have said they just couldn’t look at the horror that the bumbling oil industry committed in the Gulf and all the death associated with it. I’ve told them they must look at it so we do not lapse into denial that this nightmare really wasn’t so bad, especially when we can no longer see the oil. The pollution from gas fracking could be an even worse and longterm tragedy as it daily affects our watersheds and aquifers across the nation.

Please do not miss this extraordinarily interesting, even entertaining, film about our country and us.

It’s going to be a hot time in the old town that week because in the same place the next night, at 7 p.m. on Aug. 20, Douglas Tallamy, chairman of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, will be back in town by popular demand.

This author of “Bringing Nature Home” very clearly explains how native plants provide the basis for healthy insects, which feed all kinds of animals on up the chain to us; however, when we replace our native species with foreign plants, we sabotage nature’s systems.

This is also a “Don’t Miss!” opportunity.

FRAN ALEXANDER IS A FAYETTEVILLE RESIDENT WITH A LONG-STANDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND AN OPINION ON ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE.

News, Pages 7 on 08/08/2010

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