DOC SHOCK
Film Shines Light on West’s Energy Battles
Scarring the land. Contaminating the water. Fouling the air. A new documentary captures the complaints that surround gas drilling in the Rockies.By David Frey, 10-12-09
For residents of the West’s gas patch, the story is a familiar one. Gas companies roll in, wanting to drill. Homeowners find out they may own the land, but they don’t own the gas reserves underneath.
The drill rigs appear. For some, a battle ensues. Some complain of environmental problems. Some complain of health problems.
Outside the gas patch, the story of the battle between natural gas companies and residents is less well known, but a new documentary may help change that.
Santa Fe, N.M., filmmaker Debra Anderson set out to capture the stories of residents of western Colorado and New Mexico in her documentary Split Estate. The film is scheduled to run Oct. 17 and Oct. 22 on Planet Green, a Discovery Communications network.
A native of Boulder, Colo., whose parents live in southern Colorado, Anderson says she knew nothing about Rocky Mountain gas drilling before she began her project three years ago. An article in On Earth magazine changed that.
“My first thought was, “Wow! They have no control. I pictured a drill rig in my family’s meadow,” Anderson says.
Soon, she discovered the problems she was documenting elsewhere in the West were coming home to her in Santa Fe.
“By then I knew what that meant,” she says. “I wouldn’t have had a clue before.”
Anderson’s research led to the documentary, the first for Anderson, who had been a filmmaker for productions on PBS and “Biography” – and “Dog the Bounty Hunter” – but never had made her own film.
“I’ve always wanted to do something that meant something,” Anderson says.
Her film, narrated by actress Ali MacGraw, tells the stories of Colorado and New Mexico residents who have been critical of the energy industry for the impacts they have brought to the land, and they believe, to their health.
Many energy companies declined to be interviewed for the film, but some spokespeople for the industry defend it on film.
“I think it’s important for people to understand that we live here and love it also,” says Kathy Hall, a Grand Junction, Colo., representative of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. “So why would we mess in our nest?”
The film comes at a time when the gas industry is on the wane in much of the West, but its appearance in the more-densely-populated East, and the controversial injection of hydraulic fracturing chemicals underground, has raised the profile of an issue that many Westerners felt was being ignored.
“It’s not a dead issue,” Anderson says. “Where the industry is going in fresh, it’s quite a big deal right now. I don’t think in general it’s going to be slowed down.”
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Two 36" diameter natural gas pipelines were built from SW Wyoming to Cali in the early 2000's.
On the hottest day two summers ago, Californias 2000 megawatts of "wind power" was producing at only 15% of capacity. Guess the wind don't blow much in the dog day afternoons. Good thing they had gas.
I love it when the "pragmatic" wishes of California enviros drive "new West" enviros crazy! Of course, they do fund the New West enviros. And they also pay "twice" the electric rate that us Westerners do.
Everyone who's anyone who owns land knows there are subsurface mineral and oil-and-gas rights, and they are spelled out on the deed.
Debra Anderson has too much time on her hands - she needs to go find a better topic to put in her viewfinder.