EcoWatch Interviews Public Herald About Fracking & Triple Divide

EcoWatch_Screen Shot

With high-profile activists like Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon taking a stand against fracking, the controversial drilling practice has been pulled from the periphery and placed in the public's main line-of-sight at a scale sparking movement from Hollywood. Promised Land, a film starring Matt Damon as a salesman for a natural gas company, hits theaters tonight, lending cinematic drama to the issue of fracking. While the large-scale exposure is valuable, Melissa Troutman, co-creator of another film on fracking, is careful to iterate an important fact, "Promised Land is a story, but this [Triple Divide] is a true story." Triple Divide, a documentary by Joshua Pribanic and Melissa Troutman of Public Herald, carefully investigates the effects of fracking in the Marcellus Shale Region of Pennsylvania from the ground up, focusing its lens on the true accounts of neighbors who have lost their water well to contamination from drilling, and farmers, like the ones in Promised Land, who have lost their land to pollution from a nearby well pad. In their first live interview about the film, journalists Joshua and Melissa discussed Triple Divide and the impact of fracking with Stefanie Spear, Founder and Editor of EcoWatch, a news service designed to promote and build a community of grassroots environmental activism. You can watch the full interview above or at EcoWatch.

A Dairy Farmer Shares Her Story About Fracking: “What Have We Done?”

Carol French stands on her dairy farm in Bradford County, Pa., with heirloom tomatoes harvested from her garden. Once a supporter for fracking with a lease, she turned against it after her neighbors began to experience problems and her water became undrinkable.

In the early spring of 2006, a nice man was in the area, promoting a chance to dream of better times for Bradford County and its farmers. There was promise of jobs for everyone and the farmer would generate money from signing a lease, and if a gas well was drilled on the farmer’s property he would become rich. Two years passed with little activity. By now, the older leases were about to expire, gas companies were beginning to drill, and excitement was in the air. Here, the majority of farmers signed early, receiving $5- $85/per acre. There was this belief that the person with the gas well would become the next “shaleionaires.” We later found out small acre properties started signing leases at $2,500/ per acre. By the spring of 2009, there was uneasiness among some of the farmers who had a gas well drilled on their property. The local newspaper was reporting contamination found in water wells, death occurring on a gas pad and the farmer was facing the fact that he could lose his farm due to a lawsuit based on the gas companies operation. For myself, I was thinking that our lucky neighbor was going to become the next Millionaire, because they had the gas well drilled on them. Soon my mind changed. Those farmers were facing penalties lodged against them, due to their land becoming industrial use instead of agricultural use.

Triple Divide: Fracking Pennsylvania’s Exceptional Value Waters

The Cherry Springs vista [pictured here] forms headwaters for Pennsylvania's largest spread of Exceptional Value streams, the state's highest recognized classification by DEP for healthy ecosystems. These virgin hydrologic landscapes also hold exceptional resources for the Marcellus Shale Play. © J.B.Pribanic

Public Herald will be publishing the script for 10 of the 11 chapters from our first feature length documentary film, Triple Divide. The following is a chapter on natural gas drilling violations in Exceptional Value watersheds where fracking has occurred — [...]

Locals Fight Against Act 13, Pennsylvania’s New Fracking Law

A natural gas well pad in Bradford County, Pa., employing the controversial method hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Local legislator's want to decide where these wells are located in their districts, but Act 13 would strip them of that authority and pass it on to the state. photo: J.B.Pribanic

Local leaders sue for right to control location of gas wells Natural gas contributions, lobbying dollars flow by Alice Su for iWatch News When Pennsylvania passed a state law that stripped local authority over where potentially hazardous natural [...]

The Failure of Waste Injection Wells Nationwide

Illustration of a deep injection well for disposal of hazardous, industrial and municipal wastewater. Categorized as a "Class I Well" under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act. photo: Wikimedia Commons

Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us by Abrahm Lustgarten for ProPublica Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation’s geology as [...]

New Findings on Diesel’s Link to Cancer

Diesel powered residual waste trucks make their way through downtown Coudersport, Pa., going to or coming from natural gas extraction sites. photo: J.B.Pribanic

Diesel engine exhaust earns ‘carcinogenic’ label by Jim Morris for iWatch News Diesel engine exhaust is “carcinogenic to humans,” an international health body declared Tuesday, bolstering the findings of a controversial study published recently in the United States. [...]

Report Helps to Understand the Risk of Silica Sand

X-ray showing Silicosis complicada in the lungs. photo: Wikimedia Commons

OSHA rules on workplace toxics stalled by Jim Morris for iWatch News At 58, retired machinist Bruce Revers is tethered to his oxygen machines — a wall unit when he’s at home, a portable tank when he’s out. The simple [...]

Vermont Becomes First State to Ban Fracking

Flag-map of Vermont. photo: Wikimedia Commons

In an excerpt from StateImpact’s report, the industry responds to Vermont’s decision: The Amer­i­can Petro­leum Insti­tute is rais­ing ques­tions about the measure’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity, argu­ing a whole­sale ban on an indus­trial prac­tice vio­lates the document’s Com­merce Clause. Vermont Fracking [...]

What’s Changed in Federal Fracking Regulations?

The new federal rules for fracking do not apply to wells on private property, such as the one next to Jim Harkins home in Potter County, Pa. photo: J.B.Pribanic

40 Acres and a Rule: Draft Federal Fracking Regs Cover Only A Sliver of Land by Lena Groeger Last week’s media coverage of the Obama administration’s newly-proposed fracking rules focused so heavily on how drilling companies would have to [...]

Fracking Chemicals Can Migrate to Groundwater, According to New Study

Hydraulic fracturing fluid tanks on a Marcellus Shale natural gas well pad in Eulalia Township, Potter County Pennsylvania. © J.B.Pribanic

New Study Predicts Frack Fluids Can Migrate to Aquifers Within Years by Abrahm Lustgarten for ProPublica  A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the [...]