Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

February 24, 2011

Groundtruthing Academy Award

Nominee 'Gasland'
By MIKE SORAGHAN of

The docum entary "Gasland" brought the term "hy draulic fracturing" into the
nation's liv ing room s. With its sharp and sustained criticism of gas drilling, it
highlighted the grow ing debate that has com e with a boom in the country 's dom estic
energy production.

And it's been nom inated for an Oscar.

The HBO film follows Josh Fox, a New York film m aker whose fam ily owns property
in northeast Pennsy lv ania. After a gas com pany offers to lease the land for drilling,
he takes off in a beat-up Toy ota to interv iew people harm ed by gas drilling.

The oil and gas industry has not been as supportiv e as the Academ y of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences. Industry groups, such as the Independent Petroleum
Association of Am erica, hav e accused Fox of confusing hy draulic fracturing with
drilling in general. They allege m any other errors, large and sm all. IPAA's "Energy
In Depth" cam paign issued a sev en-page rebuttal to the film , called "Debunking
Gasland".

EID ev en m ailed it to the Academ y of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, along with a
letter arguing that the film doesn't liv e up to the academ y 's standards.

But Fox responded with his own detailed defense of the m ov ie "Affirming Gasland
(pdf)."

The result is a dust storm of charges and counterclaim s. The film m aker and
industry hav e each m ade errors and hav e spun som e facts to their outer lim its. In
an attem pt to clear the air before the env elope is opened Sunday night, Greenwire
sifted through the claim s.

We read the docum ents, the ones Fox and EID refer to, and m any m ore. We called
the experts and people inv olv ed and succeeded in "running to ground" m any of the

1 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

m ajor points of contention.

-----

In t he movie's opening segment s, Fox oft en refers t o t he 19.5 acres in

Milanville, Pa., as "my land." He also t alks about "my $ 100,000" in
reference t o money offered by a gas company t hat want ed t o drill on t he
land. Fox say s t hat he was offered a "signing bonus" of $ 4,7 50 an acre, for a
t ot al of $ 92,625. He rounded t hat figure up t o $ 100,000.

As one m ight sense from the history Fox relates about the place, it is owned by his
fam ily , specifically his father. Many supporters of drilling in the area hav e
questioned any im plication that Fox is a local, say ing he is a New Yorker whose
fam ily has a weekend property in the area.

Neither of his parents or his siblings liv e on the property . Fox say s it is his prim ary
residence.

According to the Way ne County Bureau of Elections, Fox registered to v ote in

Milanv ille in Decem ber 2 002 . Fox is founder and artistic director of International
WOW Co., which lists its address on its website as Grand Av enue, Brookly n.

In conv ersations and e-m ail exchanges, Fox said he considers him self to hav e grown
up in both Pennsy lv ania and New York.

He say s "Milanv ille is the only consistent hom e I'v e had m y whole life" and calls the
property "the centering point of m y life." He adds that he did not hide his New York
roots, wearing a Yankees cap for m ost of the film .

Nearby landowners w ho hav e leased their land hav e frequently questioned Fox's
assertion that he stood to m ake $1 00,000 to allow drilling on the land. Fox
forwarded to Greenwire a proposed lease agreem ent that would hav e added up to as
m uch as $90,000, assum ing 5 acres of land disturbance bey ond the basic, 5-acre
well pad. He said he no longer has docum ents of earlier offerings, which were
slightly m ore generous.

-----

(6:05 int o t he document ary ) "What I didn't know was t hat t he 2005 energy
bill pushed t hrough Congress by Dick Cheney exempt s t he oil and nat ural

2 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

gas indust ries from t he Safe Drinking Wat er Act . They were also exempt
from Clean Air Act , t he Clean Wat er Act , t he Superfund law and about a
dozen ot her environment al and Democrat ic regulat ions. And when t he
2005 energy bill cleared away all t he rest rict ions, companies like EnCana,
Williams, Cabot Oil & Gas and Chesapeake began t o use t he Halliburt on
t echnology ..."

The oil and gas industry enjoy s exem ptions from portions of those env ironm ental
laws. But it is not com pletely exem pt from any of them .

A one-paragraph section of the 550-page energy bill exem pted hy draulic fracturing
from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) but only the underground injection
control (UIC) prov isions. Oil and gas com panies can be sanctioned under other
prov isions of the law. And one has been recently in Texas (Greenwire, Dec. 8, 2 01 0).

Industry has contended that the bill does not "exem pt" hy draulic fracturing from the
law, because EPA had not prev iously regulated fracturing under SDWA. But the
2 005 bill specifically excluded fracturing stating that the regulation "excludes ...
underground injection of fluids ... pursuant to hy draulic fracturing operations."

Also, EPA com plied w ith a 1 997 appeals court order instructing it to require that
Alabam a regulate fracturing under SDWA. The 2 005 legislation ended that
requirem ent for EPA and prev ented the precedent from being used elsewhere.
Howev er, outside Alabam a, EPA had im posed no restrictions on fracturing under
SDWA before the exem ption in the 2 005 bill.

The energy bill, called the Energy Policy Act of 2 005, originated from a 2 001 White
House energy plan, dev eloped by a task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney , who
headed Halliburton at the tim e of the Alabam a ruling. The Los Angeles Times
reported in 2 004 that Cheney 's office was inv olv ed in discussions about how
fracturing should be portray ed in the 2 001 report and that it resisted EPA's
attem pts to include concerns about its effects on the env ironm ent (Greenwire, Oct.
1 5, 2 01 0).

Passage of the bill was a policy achiev em ent for the George W. Bush adm inistration.
Barack Obam a, a senator at the tim e, v oted for the bill.

The 2 005 energy bill also exem pted oil and gas drilling from the storm water
prov isions of the Clean Water Act. Drilling was already exem pt from CWA's

3 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

storm water discharge perm it program , so long as it is not contam inated with
sedim ent or chem icals. The bill expanded the exem ption to cov er new roads and
pipelines associated w ith oil and gas production.

The 2 005 act also m ade it easier for oil and gas projects on federal lands to by pass the
m ost exhaustiv e federal rev iews under the National Env ironm ental Policy Act
(NEPA). If a broader env ironm ental analy sis, such as an env ironm ental im pact
statem ent, has already been done for the gas field, the law allowed a "categorical
exclusion" for drill pads less than 5 acres, and m ost drill pads are less than 5 acres.

Hazardous waste created by drilling is exem pt from the federal hazardous waste
regulations of the Resource Conserv ation and Recov ery Act (RCRA), but this
exem ption was granted long before 2 005. Under federal law, it is treated as regular
waste headed to a landfill. States can hav e stricter standards.

Clean Air Act prov isions im plem ented long before 2 005, according to the
env ironm ental group Earthworks, prev ent oil and gas wells from being lum ped
together when m easuring air pollution to determ ine what kind of protections are
needed.

-----

(6:24) "But when t he 2005 energy bill cleared away all t he rest rict ions,
companies ... began t o lease Halliburt on t echnology and t o begin t he
largest and most ext ensive domest ic gas drilling campaign in hist ory --
now occupy ing 34 st at es."

Whether the shale gas rush is the "largest and m ost extensiv e dom estic gas drilling
cam paign in history " could depend on how one m easures it. The Energy Inform ation
Adm inistration chart cited by both industry and Fox shows a clear surge in drilling
activ ity in the past decade. But the upward trend started before passage of the 2 005
bill.

According to the chart, m ore wells were drilled in 2 008 than any other y ear
recorded. There has been a decline since 2 008, howev er. The y ears 2 009 and 2 01 0
rank behind a drilling ram p-up in the early 1 980s.

-----

4 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

The met hod of gas drilling t hey use is called "hy draulic fract uring."

The m ethod of drilling is not called "hy draulic fracturing." Fracturing, or "fracking"
is a process that is one part of drilling a well and producing oil or gas. Fracturing has
been used by drillers for around 60 y ears. But in recent y ears, the process has been
ram ped up with higher-v olum e "frack jobs" that inv olv e m ore pressure to break
apart concrete-like shales. These adv ances in technology hav e m ade it possible to
retriev e gas from shale form ations like the Marcellus under Pennsy lv ania.
Prev iously , it was considered uneconom ical to do so.

(32:34) "The energy t ask force and a $ 100 million lobby ing effort on behalf
of t he indust ry were significant in t he passage of t he 'Halliburt on
Loophole' t o t he Safe Drinking Wat er Act , which aut horizes oil and gas
drillers exclusively t o inject known hazardous mat erials, unchecked,
direct ly int o or adjacent t o underground drinking wat er supplies. It passed
as part of t he Bush administ rat ion's Energy Policy Act of 2005."

The $1 00 m illion refers to political contributions from energy com panies of all kinds.
According to Opensecrets.org, from the 2 002 cam paign cy cle to the end of the 2 006
cy cle, oil and gas com panies contributed about $7 2 m illion to congressional and
presidential cam paigns.

The industry put m ore m oney into lobby ing. From 2 001 , the y ear the Cheney
energy plan was released, to the end of 2 005 when the energy bill passed,
Opensecrets.org say s the oil and gas industry spent $2 87 m illion on lobby ing, or an
av erage of $57 m illion a y ear.

As for whether the law allows drillers to "inject known hazardous m aterials ... into ...
drinking water supplies," the gas-rich Marcellus Shale form ations that underlie Fox's
fam ily property and m uch of Pennsy lv ania are thousands of feet underground. That
is also thousands of feet below the groundwater. Fox him self say s in the film that
fracturing injects water "8,000 feet into the ground."

The industry say s it is im possible for fracturing chem icals to leak upward through
m illions of tons of im perm eable rock. But som e env ironm entalists say they could,
giv en the relativ ely ancient "fractured" rock form ations under Pennsy lv ania.

Still, ev en though the concept has been m ocked by industry , the law does allow for
injecting fracturing fluid, with or without "hazardous m aterials," into sources of

5 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

drinking water. EPA studied the use of hy draulic fracturing fluids in "underground
sources of drinking w ater" to produce coalbed m ethane and determ ined in 2 004 that
it posed "little or no threat." That finding form ed the basis of the SDWA exem ption for
fracturing in the 2 005 law.

But not all underground sources of drinking water are aquifers that produce potable
water. Som e are reserv oirs and considered potential sources of w ater in the future,
but they are far too salty to be used for potable water now.

If a driller injects hazardous m aterials into a reserv oir that people use for drinking
water, EPA and state regulators still hav e the authority to step in, stop the drilling
and sanction the com pany .

In another wrinkle in the com plex law, EPA is allowed to require a com pany to get a
perm it before fracturing with diesel fuel.

-----

(1:32:34) "Diana DeGet t e and Maurice Hinchey 's FRAC Act [is] a piece of
legislat ion t hat 's one paragraph long t hat simply t akes out t he exempt ion
for hy draulic fract uring t o t he Safe Drinking Wat er Act ."

When Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) and John Salazar
(D-Colo.) introduced their bill in 2 008, it w as not called the "FRAC Act." It did a little
m ore than sim ply "take out" the exem ption for fracturing. The 4 9-word, one
sentence bill (pdf) rev ersed it to say the definition of underground injection control
"includes" fracturing. Before 2 005, the statute had been silent on whether
fracturing was cov ered by SDWA.

In 2 009 , DeGette's bill (pdf) was renam ed the "Fracturing Responsibility and
Awareness of Chem icals Act." It was expanded to require public disclosure of the
chem icals used in fracturing fluid.

-----

(1:00:56) "Because of t he exempt ions, fracking chemicals are considered

propriet ary . ... The only reason we know any t hing about t he fracking
chemicals is because of t he work of Theo Colborn ... by chasing down t rucks,
combing t hrough mat erial safet y dat a sheet s and collect ing samples."

6 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

There are easier way s to find the chem ical ingredients of fracturing fluid than
tracking down trucks. For exam ple, the Pennsy lv ania Departm ent of
Env ironm ental Protection has a list (pdf) of som e of the chem icals used on its
website.

But the inform ation w asn't as readily av ailable in 2 003 when Theo Colborn started
researching the chemicals (pdf) being injected into wells in western Colorado where
she liv es. As for chasing down trucks, the w ebsite for her group, the Endocrine
Disruptor Exchange, states that to research the ingredients used in gas drilling, the
group has sifted through num erous sources of inform ation, inclu ding accident and
spill reports.

In 2 002 , EPA had published a draft of its fracturing study that listed fracturing
fluid ingredients gathered from m aterial safety data sheets and the Bureau of Land
Managem ent. Little-known at the tim e, it listed ingredients such as benzene,
2 -butoxy ethanol ("2 -Be") and diesel fuel. It also noted that early fracturing
technology inv olv ed injection of napalm .

Pennsy lv ania's DEP released its list of chem icals in March 2 009. It was updated and
posted to the agency 's website in June 2 01 0. New York's Departm ent of
Env ironm ental Conserv ation published a m ore detailed list in a 2 009 st udy (pdf)
(page 1 3 0). Energy In Depth cites its source as inform ation gathered in 2 009.

Som e state gov ernm ent lists lack im portant inform ation or giv e v ague nam es for
potentially hazardous chem icals (Greenwire, June 2 1 , 2 01 0).

The m ost com plete public disclosure is in Wy om ing, where the state's Oil and Gas
Conserv ation Com m ission began last y ear to dem and that drillers disclose each
chem ical that they are putting in each well (Greenwire, Dec. 2 0, 2 01 0). Ev en there,
though, the state allows com panies to withhold the nam e of som e chem icals, if they
can prov e that the inform ation constitutes a "trade secret."

-----

(6:50) "[Hy draulic fract uring] blast s a mix of wat er and chemicals 8,000
feet int o t he ground. The fracking it self is like a mini-eart hquake. ... In
order t o frack, y ou need some fracking fluid -- a mix of ov er 596 chemicals."

There are not "ov er 596" chem icals in fracturing fluid. That m ight be the size of the

7 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

sm orgasbord that drillers can choose from . But in any giv en "frack job," the figure is
m ore like a dozen.

A quick rev iew of the detailed disclosures being filed in Wy om ing shows a range of
between eight and 1 4 different chem icals m ixed with water and sand for each "frack
job."

According to industry , those chem icals am ount between 2 percent and half a
percent of the m ixture. Fracturing com panies spend a lot of tim e and m oney on that
sm all fraction. Halliburton once estim ated that public disclosure of its proprietary
form ulas could cost it $3 7 5 m illion.

The chem icals inv olv ed can be as m undane as ice cream thickener and as toxic as
benzene. Many of those toxins are harm ful in tiny quantities.

As for whether fracturing creates a "m ini-earthquake," Anne Sheehan, a professor of

geological sciences at the Univ ersity of Colorado, said, "I don't think that's really
exaggerating." But, she added, "In fracking, it would be too sm all to be felt by people."

And she noted that "clean" renewable energy can cause the sam e "m ini-
earthquakes." Geotherm al energy production can cause the sam e seism ic activ ity ,
she said. In 2 009, a geotherm al project in Switzerland was shut down when a study
found earthquakes generated by the project would likely cause m illions of dollars in
dam age each y ear.

The deep underground injection of drilling waste causes m ore seism ic activ ity ,
Sheehan said. Som e are looking at underground injection as they search for the
cause of an earthquake "swarm " in Arkansas, which has unnerv ed residents but
caused little dam age.

-----

In t he document ary , Fox graphically depict s t he fract uring process as one

t hat result s in t he oblit erat ion of t he shale format ion. In realit y , t he
fract ures creat ed by t he procedure and kept open by t he int roduct ion of
proppant s such as sand are t y pically less t han a millimet er t hick.

Fox's anim ation of fracturing differs from this industry -sponsored v ideo. This
depiction on the "Gasland" website is m ore dram atic than the graphic in the film . It

8 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

shows fractures reaching up to the water table, though the text below say s that they
are separated by about 7 ,000 feet. It also states that water problem s ty pically stem
from poor cem ent well casings, which is different from fracturing.

-----

(50:05) "Each well complet ion, t hat is, t he init ial drilling phase plus t he
first frack job, requires 1,150 t ruck t rips."

According to Fox's rebuttal, he used inform ation from an 800-page "supplement al

generic environment al impact st at ement (pdf)" produced by the New York
Departm ent of Conserv ation. It is difficult to replicate his exact figure from the
inform ation, but it is squarely within the range.

That study estim ated that the num ber of truckloads to construct a well pad and
fracture one well is between 890 and 1 ,3 40 truckloads. The av erage of those figures
is 1 ,1 1 5.

The Energy In Depth critique m ocked the idea that ev ery "frack job" would take the
sam e num ber of trips. Fox say s that he av eraged the figures.

For one well pad with eight wells drilled on it, the New York study estim ated
between 5,850 and 8,905 truckloads, for an av erage of 7 ,3 7 7 .

The Marcellus Shale Coalition's website, say s each frack job inv olv es "an av erage of
4 00 trucks com ing and going" to the site. It does not list a specific num ber of truck
trips.

Fox cites these truck-trip figures in the m idst of his segm ent on drilling in western
Wy om ing, not Pennsy lv ania or New York. The Bureau of Land Managem ent's
env ironm ental studies for that area estim ated that building a m ulti-well well pad,
drilling the first well and "fracking" it wou ld require 2 ,02 0 truck trips. That
assum ed it would take 45 or m ore day s to drill a well. Com panies are now getting
them done in fewer than 2 0 day s.

-----

(51:12) "Before t he wat er can be hauled away and disposed of somewhere, it

has t o be empt ied int o a pit -- an eart hen pit , or a clay pit , somet imes a
lined pit , but a pit -- where a lot of it can seep right back down int o t he

9 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

ground."

Most states, including Pennsy lv ania, hav e rules requiring drillers to keep waste
water from seeping into the ground and groundwater, which m eans drillers should
be sanctioned if their liners leak. But not all states hav e such rules.

ProPublica, a news organization that has run a series of articles sharply critical of
drilling, analy zed a report (pdf) on pit liners that is frequently cited by industry . It
found that while 2 3 states require pits to be lined with natural or artificial liners to
keep fluids from seeping directly into the ground, at least four states do not.

ProPublica also noted that 1 7 states do not require that pits be kept at a distance
from stream s and riv ers and that 1 7 states do not explicitly forbid pits from
intersecting the underground water table. And fewer than half of the states
surv ey ed hav e a specific cleanup standard when waste fluids or pits do spill.

-----

(53:36) "The Pinedale Ant icline and t he Jonah gas fields [of Wy oming] are
direct ly in t he pat h of t he t housand-y ear-old migrat ion corridor of
pronghorn ant elope, mule deer and sage grouse. And y eah, each of t hese
species is endangered and has suffered a significant decline of t heir
populat ions since 2005."

Those gas fields are in the path of a longstanding m igration corridor, but m ule deer
and antelope are not endangered. And the sage grouse in that area do not m igrate.

The sage grouse, hard hit by oil and gas dev elopm ent, is on the decline. Subdiv isions
and wind power turbines are also a problem . Last y ear, federal officials determ ined
sage grouse m et the qualifications for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
But they said there w ere too m any other species that were in m ore dire straits and
too few resources to protect them . The Fish and Wildlife Serv ice deem ed sage grouse
"warranted but precluded" rather than threatened or endangered.

The num ber of deer in the Sublette County m ule deer herd has declined 7 percent
since 2 005, according to BLM. But on the Mesa where drilling rigs m ingle with
prim e wintering habitat for deer, the num ber of deer rebounded 2 5 percent since
2 005 after sev eral y ears of decline. BLM officials note that there are other factors
affecting deer in the area, including drought and residential dev elopm ent.

10 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

The pronghorn population has increased, according to BLM.

-----

(31:32) "In 2004, t he EPA was invest igat ing wat er cont aminat ion incident s
due t o hy draulic fract uring across t he count ry . But a panel reject ed t he
inquiry , st at ing t hat alt hough hazardous mat erials were being inject ed
underground, EPA did not need t o inv est igat e."

In 2 004 , EPA was com pleting a m ultiy ear study of fracturing. Researchers (not
enforcem ent personnel) were looking into w hether drillers contam inate
groundwater when they inject hy draulic fracturing fluid into underground sources
of drinking water. The study did not cov er all ty pes of drilling, only production of
m ethane gas from coal beds.

EPA's Office of Water, not a panel, determ ined not to pursue further study . The office
was headed by then-acting Assistant Adm inistrator Benjam in Grum bles, a George
W. Bush appointee. The EPA study determ ined that fracturing m ay release
potentially hazardous chem icals into sources of drinking water but said there was no
reason to study it further. The study determ ined that fracturing posed "little or no
threat" because the w ater is sucked back up out of the ground and the hazardous
chem icals would likely be diluted or biodegrade on their own.

-----

(1:28:06) "Just a few short mont hs aft er t his int erview, t he Pennsy lvania
Depart ment of Env ironment al Prot ect ion suffered t he worst budget cut s in
hist ory , amount ing t o over 7 00 st aff eit her being fired or having reduced
hours and 25 percent of it s t ot al budget cut ."

The oil and gas program in Pennsy lv ania didn't lose staff in the significant cuts to
the state budget. It gained inspectors and perm it staff after increasing fees for the
processing of Marcellus drilling perm its. The cut was to the state-funded portion of
the DEP budget, said Jan Jarrett, president and CEO of PennFuture, a state-focused
env ironm ental group, but the agency gets m oney from other places such as federal
grants and user fees.

The "7 00 staff" figure seem s to correlate to the num ber of statew ide positions lost.
The agency hired 3 7 new em ploy ees in 2 009 and announced in January 2 01 0 that

11 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

it would begin hiring 68 new people.

Fox has noted that the film was com pleted shortly before the 68 new positions were
announced.

-----

(1:23:15) Dunkard Creek: Fox includes images of dead fish along a 35-mile
st ret ch of Dunkard Creek in Washingt on Count y , Pa.; at t ribut es t hat
event t o nat ural gas development .

EPA and state regulators hav e pointed the blam e for the Septem ber 2 009 at coal
m ine drainage, not w astewater from drill sites.

EPA's prelim inary report in Decem ber 2 009 said a bloom of toxic algae wiped out
alm ost all fish, m ussels, salam anders and aquatic life along 43 m iles of the creek
that snakes back and forth along the Pennsy lv ania-West Virginia border. The salty
conditions that allow ed the algae, EPA reported, were tied to m ine treatm ent
discharges high in "total dissolv ed solids."

Fox has questioned that finding, noting that m ines hav e been draining into local
creeks for decades, and posed, "So, what has changed?" But in Septem ber 2 009, West
Virginia Public Broadcasting reported a state official's contention, "One possible
culprit is a new borehole on the Pennsy lv ania side that's injecting polluted water
into the m ine v oid."

State officials did not say what the borehole was. But in the weeks before the fish kill,
EPA had fined the m ine owner m ore than $1 50,000 for failing to properly staff a
coalbed m ethane injection well in the v icinity .

EPA said it was working to dev elop standards to protect aquatic life from m ine
wastes. It said officials hoped the standard could be expanded to cov er Marcellus
Shale drilling wastes and coalbed m ethane wastes.

-----

"That 's t he best I'v e done. I smell hair." -- Mike Markham of Fort Lupt on,
Colo. He had just cupped a light er t o his kit chen faucet . As wat er st art ed t o
dribble out flames shot out of t he faucet and filled his sink wit h flame. It 's
one of t he most dramat ic moment s in "Gasland." The film also shows news

12 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

foot age from a Denver t elevision st at ion of his neighbor Jesse Ellswort h
light ing wat er from his faucet on fire.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conserv ation Com m ission t old (pdf) Markham , "There are
no indications of oil and gas related im pacts to y our water well."

Markham 's partner, Marsha Mendenhall, acknowledges the state's conclusion in the
film . But she doesn't accept it. She tells Fox that state officials told her, "There's
nothing wrong with the water that can be affected by oil and gas production in y our
area." She adds, "I was a little disappointed in the state. I m ean, obv iously , we hav e a
problem here."

The sam e agency found (pdf) that m ethane in the Ellsworths' well water did
originate from oil and gas dev elopm ent. The Ellsworths settled with a gas com pany
and Colorado officials replugged a 60-y ear-old well located near their well that the
agency considered (pdf) to be a possible source of or conduit for m igration of gas
from drilling.

Fox has said that because of the settlem ent with the gas com pany the Ellsworths are
now prohibited from discussing the situation.

Dissatisfaction with state-lev el regulation is com m on am ong critics of drilling, who

want to see m ore U.S. EPA regulation.

Methane is not harm ful in drinking water . But in a confined space it can
accum ulate and explode. In higher concentrations, it can becom e an asphy xiant.

The problem of gas m igration has little to do with the specific process of hy draulic
fracturing but with poor cem ent well casings.

In a presentation (starts at 3 3 :3 2 ) last y ear at the Heritage Foundation, Mark

Boling, executiv e v ice president and general counsel for Southwestern Energy Co.,
explained that while hy draulic fracturing itself doesn't cause gas m igration, poor
well construction can cause it.

"We hav e analy zed ev ery case that has been reported with respect to gas m igration;
we hav e found that absolutely none of that has to do with the actual hy draulic
fracturing," Boling said. "It has to do, usually , with problem s from shallower
form ations that hav en't been properly cem ented. ... The gas is allowed to m igrate

13 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

out and that is a problem ."

-----

Lisa Bracken: Fox blames met hane occurrence in West Divide Creek, Colo.,
on nat ural gas dev elopment .

State oil and gas regulators hav e determ ined that drilling did not cause a gas seep in
West Div ide Creek in Garfield County , Colo. But county officials are standing behind
a study they com m issioned by Univ ersity of Wy om ing geologist Geoff Thy ne that
m ethane seem s to be increasing in groundwater and it seem s to be com ing from
natural gas (Land Letter, March 2 6, 2 009). Thy ne is part of the univ ersity 's
Enhanced Oil Recov ery Institute. The county asked the state to reconsider Thy ne's
concerns, and the state has agreed to take another look.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conserv ation Com m ission also criticized Fox for indicating
that hy draulic fracturing caused an earlier seep nearby in the sam e creek. In 2 004,
the com m ission said, it determ ined that seep was caused by a drilling error,
specifically "an im properly cem ented borehole." The operator was hit with a
"substantial fine."

-----

Calvin Tillman: Fox int erviews may or of Dish, Texas; blames nat ural gas
development , t ransport for t oxins in t he air, benzene in blood.

State health officials determ ined that there were not abnorm al lev els of benzene in
the blood of people of Dish. The study found that, "For the m ajority of the
participants, the lev els of [v olatile organic com pounds] m easured in blood were
sim ilar to those m easured in the general U.S. population, suggesting that their
exposures to these contam inants were not different than those receiv ed by people
liv ing in other areas of the U.S."

Their study was released in May 2 01 0, after the film was com pleted and released.
Health officials recom m ended that the tests should be repeated during the sum m er
m onths when the tem peratures are higher and when people indicate that the odors
are greatest. No repeat test was done.

Town officials and industry critics point to different studies that hav e found

14 of 15 27/02/11 19:15
Groundtruthing Academy Award Nominee 'Gasland' - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-ground...

unhealthy lev els of benzene in the air. The Texas Com m ission on Env ironm ental
Quality 's m onitoring in 2 009 found short-term benzene lev els exceeding the
departm ent's long-term health-based com parison v alue in two locations. Short-term
lev els of benzene can contribute to long-term cum ulativ e exposure lev els. The
departm ent recom m ended additional long-term air m onitoring.

-----

Energy In Dept h also quest ioned t he credibilit y of EPA whist leblower

West on Wilson, who crit icized t he 2004 st udy , and was int erviewed in t he
film. The EID rebut t al st at ed, "Mr. Wilson has invoked 'whist leblower'
st at us t o fight dam const ruct ion in Colorado, oil and gas development in
Mont ana, and t he mining of gold in Wy oming."

Wilson, who retired in 2 01 0, inv oked whistleblower status only once during his
tenure at EPA. That w as when he criticized the 2 004 study . He w as not part of the
team that did the study .

Copy right 2 01 1 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserv ed.

For more new s on energy and the environment, vis it w w w .greenw ire.com .
Greenw ire is publis hed by Environment & Energy Publis hing. Read More »

15 of 15 27/02/11 19:15