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Film on ‘fracking’ impact to air at Buffalo library

Buffalo, N.Y. – On Tuesday, Aug. 28, at 5:30 p.m. at Frank E. Merriweather, Jr. Library (1324 Jefferson Ave.), there will be a free screening of the documentary Gasland.

Filmmaker Josh Fox won an Emmy for “outstanding directing” in 2011 after the film aired on HBO.

After the screening, there will be a Q&A session with Food & Water Watch, a consumer organization.

 In Gasland, filmmaker Fox was asked to lease his land for drilling, and embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of contamination in a new America called "Gasland."

 The film shows a nearby Pennsylvania town reports where residents light their drinking water on fire.

Tom Amontree, executive vice president for America's Natural Gas Alliance, said Gasland plays “fast and loose with the facts…It has no place in credible, science-based discussions about our nation's energy future." 

In the film's signature moment, Mike Markham, a landowner, ignites his tap water. The film leaves viewers with the impression that the flaming tap water was caused by fracking.
 
According to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which tested Markham's water in 2008, the flaming water may have been caused by naturally occurring methane after his well was drilled into a natural gas pocket. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission made an information sheet to “correct” the film's so-called “misleading depictions” of methane migration in Weld County.

 John Hanger, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, said the film is "fundamentally dishonest" and "a deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect."

Gasland presents stark and arresting moments, which, if even half true shows the public needs more information on this topic. Perhaps a good place to start is at the screening in Buffalo and the Q and A session afterward.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Aug 21 , 2012