Gasland Director Josh Fox Arrested at Fracking Hearing
You've probably read or seen news clips that Josh Fox, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland was arrested when he tried to film a hearing on drinking water contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Fracking is the mining technique that his film Gasland explored and identified as a devastation to the environment and to the earth's clean water supply. The Republicans objected to Fox's cameras in the committee room and Fox was ejected and later charged with unlawful entry by Capitol Hill police who also gave him a court date to appear on the 15th of February.
Fox, has become THE anti-fracking advocate. Maintaining a website and posting messages on his blog in addition to his film, he has educated thousands and has spurred on the debate about the noxious horrific results which can occur when pressurized fluid is blown into rock layers to create fissures from which fossil fuels (natural gas) eventually can be extracted. A particularly frightening scene in his film occurs when a homeowner goes to turn on his water faucet (he lives in an area that has been subjected to the process) and he is able to ignite the running water because it has been chemicalized to flammability. That sight is enough to deaden anyone's desire to have the process used ANYWHERE in the United States, let alone on a mountainside down the road from your winter retreat. Recently, two EU countries, France and Bulgaria have banned this procedure to release natural gas and capture it.
Closely following EPA impact statements, reports and hearings, Josh Fox followed the EPA's investigation for over three years and knew of the public hearings of the Environmental Protection Agency's draft report on fracking's impact on a Wyoming town and the suffering townspeople who had appeared in his film and had gotten the EPA to investigate. The EPA released more than 620 documents in support of its finding that hydraulic fracturing had contaminated the town's water supply.
Fox appeared on The Young Turks, Current.com, interviewed by Cenk Uygur. There he discussed that the Republicans, who brought their lobbyists from the oil and gas industry, called the hearing to challenge the scientific evidence of the EPA's three and one-half year study whose documents unequivocally showed that fracking had contaminated the ground water supply that held 50 times the amount of benzene than it should, making the water undrinkable and flammable in Pavillion, Wyoming.
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