Frankie Boyle TV - Fracking: Shattered Ground TV - Eilish Cleary - Council of Canadian Academies Report - David Hughes - Jerry Dias - Jeff Goodell - Gasland 2010 - Gasland II 2013 - Josh Fox - David Suzuki - Tonight TV - Horizon TV - Mayor of Dish - Split Estate TV - Ian R Crane inc Voices From the Gasfields - Underworld Inc TV - Shale Cowboys: Fracking Under Trump 2017 - Molly’s Game 2017 - Frack Them All 2014 - Fracking in America 2012 - Big Oil vs The World TV -
I started to wonder if this government is so obsessed with fracking because they’re trying to release Thatcher’s soul from hell. Frankie Boyle’s New World Order I, BBC 2022
Shattering underground rock to get natural gas has opened up a hidden treasure trove. It’s also ignited a major controversy. Fracking: Shattered Ground, PBS 2015
750 chemical compounds are used in fracking fluids including carcinogens and air pollutants. ibid.
Another problem: earthquakes. ibid.
I do not think the health pieces are being adequately addressed, even within the current rules for the industry, and the processes do not enable us to look at the impacts either in the short term, medium term or long term. Dr Eilish Cleary, NB Chief Medical Officer of Health, CBC NB 6 May 2014
Most experts agree that impacts on water raise the greatest environmental concern from shale gas development. Council of Canadian Academies Report of 16 Canadian and American Scientists, Environmental Impacts of Shale Gas Extraction in Canada, May 2014
Our country will have drilled and fracked our way down a blind alley (with huge associated economic and environmental costs) for a short-lived energy boom. David Hughes, former Scientist Geological Survey of Canada
Just because we can carry out this activity does not mean we should ... Unconventional gas fracking has the potential to have catastrophic effects on our environment and economy. Jerry Dias, UNIFOR President – Canada’s largest energy union, November 2013
The process of fracking came about in the late 1940s ... You pump the water down the well under phenomenal pressure to fracture the rocks ... There’s 5% of this chemical cocktail ... What they don't know is where it’s going to go. Ian R Crane, interview Richplanet TV
64% of England is sitting over shale gas or coal-bed methane. ibid.
Right now we’ve got a major propaganda PR campaign being mounted by the government and the corporations. ibid.
It is 6 years in 11 days since the moratorium on fracking, unconventional gas exploitation, was lifted in this country. How many fracks have we had since that date? … 1 … How many earthquakes have been triggered? … 36 seismic events. Ian Crane, Democracy in Chains, Alternative View Conference 9.1
Nobody disputes that cheap natural gas would be a good thing for the economy. The question is, is this a sustainable new development that can be counted on for decades to come, or simply a ‘bubble’ brought on by a land grab and drilling frenzy? Jeff Goodell
I’m not a pessimist. I’ve always had a great deal of faith in people that we wouldn’t succumb to frenzy or rage or greed. That we’d figure out a solution without destroying the things that we love. Josh Fox, Gasland ***** 2010
‘Hydraulic fracturing has been characterised as environmentally risky and inadequately regulated. Press reports and websites alleging that six states have documented over 1,000 incidents of groundwater contamination resulting from the practice of hydraulic fracturing – such reports are not accurate.’ ibid. evidence to sub-committee on Energy & Minerals
4In 1972 Richard Nixon signed the clean water act into law. ibid.
One day I got a letter in the mail; it was from a natural gas company. The letter told me my land was on top of a formation called the Marcellus Shale which stretched across Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia. And that the Marcellus Shale was the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. I could lease my land to this company and I would receive a signing bonus of $4,750 an acre. Having 19.5 acres that was nearly $100,000 there in my hand. ibid.
The 2005 Energy Bill pushed through Congress by Dick Cheney exempts the oil and natural gas industries from the Safe Drinking Water Act. They were also exempt from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Superfund Law and about a dozen other environmental and democratic legislations. ibid.
The method of gas drilling they used is called hydraulic fracturing ... Like a mini-earthquake ... A mix of over 596 chemicals. ibid.
Shortly after their well was drilled their water started bubbling and fizzing – it turned out to be natural gas. ibid.
I’d heard reports of oil and gas waste-water known as produced water, the water that comes back up out of the ground that’s contaminated with the fracking fluids being dumped illegally on to fields and into streams, and I’d heard of workers who had chemical burns on their hands and faces. ibid.
I was starting to compile a list of things that could happen in Dimmock: water trouble, health problems, hazardous explosive conditions inside the house, destruction of land ... A total loss of normal life. ibid.
There was no-one for them to complain to. ibid.
[lights drinking water from tap] Jesus Christ! ibid.
The Whistleblower: Weston Wilson – In 2004 the EPA was investigating water contamination incidents due to hydraulic fracturing across the country, but a panel rejected the Inquiry stating that although hazardous materials were being injected underground the EPA did not need to investigate. Weston Wilson, a twenty-year veteran of the EPA, wrote a letter to Congress objecting. ibid.
Energy Police Act of 2005: The Halliburton Loophole to the Safe Water Act. ibid.
Glycol Ethers eat the membrane inside the filters. ibid.
Of all the [chemical] water that goes down only about half of it comes back up. ibid.
Evaporation Sprayers ... In flow-back pits the water is sprayed into the air ... They create ozone hazardous air pollutants and they fall down in the form of chemical or acid rains on the grasslands. ibid.
Theo [Dr Colborn] has identified 596 different chemicals in 900 chemical products. ibid.
I tried to keep anger and sorrow at bay. ibid.
I wanted to get out of Gasland as fast as I could. But there was nowhere to go ... Everywhere I went it was the same story. ibid.
I’d seen these condensation tanks everywhere all across the United States. ibid.
Industry has leased hundreds of thousands of acres within the New York City watershed and the Delaware basin. ibid.
There were hours and hours of hearings at city hall. But no-one from the State’s department of environmental conservation came to the city’s hearings. ibid.
It’s possible the Gasland might stretch a little bit further from my backyard into yours. ibid.
‘We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years.’ Josh Fox, Gasland II ***** Obama, 2013
‘The United States will promote the use of shale gas.’ ibid. Hillary Clinton
Gulf of Mexico July 4 2010: 75th day of the BP oil spill: It was hard to believe my eyes: as far as I could see the surface of the Gulf was streaked with oil like ghosts along the surface. ibid. Fox
BP was spraying chemical dispersants on the surface of the Gulf in huge volumes, a chemical that had been banned in Britain actually makes the oil more toxic and sinks it out of sight: they weren’t solving the crisis, just hiding it. ibid.
The F word is not in the dark any more … with one to two million new wells projected … creating an industrial redefinition of the landscape. ibid.
The industry doesn’t have to tell the public what chemicals they’re using. ibid.
Thousands of wells drilled, thousands of reported violations: The New York Times investigated and found that waste water from drilling was being inadequately treated and dumped back into water supplies all over Pennsylvania. ibid.
And here the gas industry was employing former psy-ops experts to actually write local laws and develop techniques. ibid.
The Pennsylvania department of Homeland Security lists anti-fracking protest groups as possible terrorists. ibid.
Schlumberger: Over a 30 year period over 50% of wells failed. ibid.
The problem is that everywhere the gas drilling industry goes, a trail of water contamination, air pollution, health concerns and betrayal of basic American civic and community values follows. Josh Fox
Hydraulic fracturing requires massive amounts of water. Disposing of the toxic wastewater, as well as accidental spills, can contaminate drinking water and harm human health. David Suzuki
In the US where fracking is well established there’s growing alarm amid stories of gas-contaminated drinking water. Tonight: The Truth about Fracking, ITV 2013
A rush for energy in America – for a type of gas that appears cheap and plentiful. One with just one way of getting it out of the ground – hydraulic frackturing, or fracking. Horizon: Fracking – The New Energy Rush, BBC 2013
For some the great hope of the future – shale gas. It doesn’t come out easily. ibid.