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Archive for February 27th, 2011

Why Gasland should win the Oscar for best Documentary

Posted in Air Quality, Energy, tagged Academy Award, Barnett shale, gasland, hydraulic fracturing, josh fox, natural gas on February 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Texas Barnett Shale gas drilling rig near Alva...

Image via Wikipedia

I hope you’re going to have a great Oscar night, and while we may all have our favorites for best picture (True Grit was my favorite, but I think The Social Network and The King’s Speech are also very deserving), this year we have one of the most important issues of our time as the subject of one of the nominees for best documentary.

In Gasland, director Josh Fox travels across America to learn about the effects of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as a method to drill for natural gas. Despite the rhetoric about how clean natural gas is compared to other fossil fuels (kind of like saying it’s the least ugly stepsister), fracking is causing major problems across the US.

One of our favorite local bloggers in Texas, TXSharon, has been documenting these same problems living on top of the Barnett Shale. We don’t have a clip we can embed from Gasland, but I’ll use this as a placeholder:

Fox’s filmmaking is beautiful, frightening, humorous where possible, wry, and dismally depressing all at the same time. But he educates you on this terrible problem seeping up from the ground, and he makes you a little bit hopeful that we can find ways to get energy that don’t destroy our water supplies. That don’t ruin suburban neighborhoods or productive farmland.

And ultimately why it should win is because it’s fairly obvious the truth it is telling is far too dangerous to those who profit from fracking with our water. The natural gas industry has been on a months-long crusade to try to discredit Gasland, even going so far as to try to get it declared ineligible to receive the award, and if Hollywood bows to the pressure it will be an even worse tragedy than allowing them to censor The King’s Speech so it can get a PG-13 rating.

Also, Id like to see it win because it features my favorite EPA Regional Administrator, Dr. Al Armendariz, talking about his research about how the drilling from the Barnett Shale in suburban Ft Worth is creating more pollution than all of the cars and trucks in the Dallas/Ft Worth area combined. It also features Cal Tillman, the mayor of the little town of Dish, TX, who recently sold his home in Dish because of health problems his family was having from the drilling. He made the new buyer watch Gasland before they bought the house. These real, but amazing, subjects in the documentary are folks I’m proud to rub shoulders with here in Texas.

Enjoy the Academy Awards, hopefully surrounded by some good, geeky friends and family. And even if “Exit Through the Gift Shop” wins for best documentary, make sure you see Gasland as soon as possible.

Cross-posted at BigShinyRobot.com where I occasionally blog about geeky stuff under the pseudonym CitizenBot

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Eminent Domain: Coming to your town soon?

Posted in Air Quality, Good Government, natural gas, tagged Eminent Domain, fracking, keystone xl, Private property, Tar Sands, Texas, texas supreme court on February 27, 2011 | 4 Comments »

The Texas Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil court, will hear a controversial case over whether a company that plans to build pipeline to carry carbon dioxide and natural gas from Louisiana to site south of Houston qualifies as a “common carrier,” giving it the power of eminent domain. That means if they want to come through your property and you don’t want to sign the offer they make on your property, they can begin condemnation procedures to just take your property for what they think it is worth. And that just ain’t right.

The case is scheduled for oral arguments before the Texas Supreme Court on April 19th. At issue is whether the Jefferson County trial court ruled incorrectly when it said Denbury was a common carrier (meaning besides the company’s private, for-profit use, the line would be available for public use as well) and therefore could force private landowners to sell right-of-way so the 320-mile stretch of pipe could be built.

The appeals court upheld the trial court.

The industry is watching the case closely, and so should you, as lawmakers this session are considering emergency legislation that would strengthen the position of private property owners in eminent domain cases. If the Supreme Court rules in the company’s favor and the legislation is passed, we could see a whole network of new pipelines snaking across areas of northeast and east Texas as natural gas companies expand their fracking projects and with a Canadian company pushing the tar sands pipeline from Western and Central Canada, down through the middle of the country on its way to crude refineries in the Houston area. And they’ll be singing:

So Lord help the sister, who comes between me and my pipeline terminus.

To see the court documents filed in the case, click here.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

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