Kendal Gast
ENGL 355
Gasland Response
Paper
Living in
Iowa removes most of the population’s attention from commercial drilling
practices. That is, pretty much all of
Iowa’s residents. If we do have a
problem with drinking water or are concerned with the quality of it, most of
the time residents can attribute the problem to field runoff or perhaps even a
freak accident. No one really has
problems with natural gas or oil drilling.
This is why Gasland is rather
important and should be directed at audiences with no knowledge or experience
with drinking water pollution.
But what
happens once these viewers acquire this new knowledge of fracking and the
horror stories of families affected?
Josh Fox’s website details some steps viewers can take: contact state
officials, support local organizations, look for calls to action, and share
your story (Gasland.org). To me, this doesn’t really seem all that
effective. Truthfully, there doesn’t
appear to be anything the average citizen can do to stop fracking. What good is contacting a state
representative? It will take months
before anything is done on the policy end of the issue. Supporting local organizations is probably a
good thing to do and required if a person wants to consider themselves “a part
of the movement”. But again, what do
these organizations do? Lobby for
anti-fracking legislation? Another dead
end. Most of the calls to action on the Gasland website are for protests in
areas where new wells are planning to be drilled. Individuals usually write pleas for help and
want others to join their cause, but how?
What exactly do they want random Internet browsers to do?
I’m
imagining painted signs, occupying well sites, and angry speeches at town hall
meetings. Those actions are when the
people are really desperate. Or perhaps
not; those actions could easily be everyday occurrences in areas where fracking
is well known. When I think of direct
action, especially in response to energy companies drilling for natural gas, I
think of vigilante type stuff. Like
loosening a few bolts here and there, hiding special tools, clogging pumps and
pipes, maybe even sticking a few nails in tires. The companies would get smart and increase
security measures, but by that time the damage would be done. They wouldn’t be able to pin it on any single
person or group because these operations would take place, of course, in the
dark of night and with expert covertness.
It wouldn’t matter if we couldn’t go back again and cause a little more
damage; the companies would already be afraid of another sabotage. Fellow vigilantes would then use the
company’s fear against them, distract them, and deliver a larger blow to their
huge storage fields where dozens of trucks, trailers, vehicles, and equipment
are stored.
Covert
vigilante operations and protests can’t be sustained, however. This seems to be a problem with several
documentary films that wish to incite actions from viewers. This is especially true with Gasland, because the newest calls to
action on the website are from 2011, only a year after the film was
released. The “share your story”
repository also doesn’t really exist since there’s only a place to submit your
story, not read any that have been submitted.
I have a feeling no one has submitted anything in the past few
years.
Perhaps the
most slippery slope that occurs with natural gas production is air
quality. How do governments come up with
ways to make sure VOCs, emitted at drill sites and especially from condensate
tanks, don’t waft over family homes or collect over small communities? These drill sites contribute to ozone
production when they evaporate produced water pits that contain nitrates and
VOCs (Swarthmore). Property lines are
going to have to be drawn not only on the ground, but in the atmosphere as
well.
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