ProPublica Feature
Fracking: The Music Video
ProPublica, which has published the in-depth series on fracking, Buried Secrets, explains it all via YouTube.By Eric Umansky, Guest Writer, 5-13-11
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The best explainers are direct, concise and easy to understand. But investigative journalism is rarely any of those things, instead reflecting the messiness of real life. That’s why explanation is just the beginning, a gateway into the kind of deep-dives for which ProPublica is known and respected.
“My Water’s On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song)” is not meant to take the place of the rich, detailed investigation done by Abrahm Lustgarten and the rest of ProPublica’s frack squad. It’s impossible to sum up a massive, immersive experience like “Buried Secrets” in a two-and-a-half minute song. Instead, the intent is to bring people in, to create an easily digestible package that compels news consumers to dig into the real meat of the story.
An explainer is not “everything you need to know about X.” It’s not a shortcut to becoming an armchair expert. But it is the starting point, the big picture, the tiny bundle of information that gives users the context to appreciate and understand the most challenging and rewarding works of journalism.
So while we hope that you enjoy the song, what we really want you to do is read more about hydraulic fractured drilling, so you can truly understand “what the frack is going on.”
--Explainer.Net
The video was done by David Holmes and other talented journalism students at Jay Rosen’s NYU’s Studio 20. It was part of their collaboration with ProPublica to build better explanations for stories. For more on fracking, its lack of regulation, and the potential for drinking water contamination, check out our now nearly three-year running investigation.
“My Water’s On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song)” is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.
Music by David Holmes and Andrew Bean
Vocals by David Holmes and Niel Bekker
Animation by Adam Sakellarides and Lisa Rucker
Lyrics:
Fracking is a form of natural gas drilling
An alternative to oil cause the oil kept spilling
Bringing jobs to small towns so everybody’s willing
People turn on their lights and the drillers make a killing
Water goes into the pipe, the pipe into the ground
The pressure creates fissures 7,000 feet down
The cracks release the gas that powers your town
That well is fracked….. Yeah totally fracked
But there’s more in the water than just H2O
Toxic chemicals help to make the fluid flow
With names like benzene and formaldehyde
You better keep ‘em far away from the water supply
The drillers say the fissures are a mile below
The groundwater pumped into American homes
But don’t tell it to the residents of Sublette Wy-O
That water’s fracked…. We’re talking Benzene…
What the frack is going on with all this fracking going on
I think we need some facts to come to light
I know we want our energy but nothing ever comes for free
I think my water’s on fire tonight
So it all goes back to 2005
Bush said gas drillers didn’t have to comply
with the Safe Drinking Water Act, before too long
It was “frack, baby, frack” until the break of dawn.
With the EPA out it was up to the states
But they didn’t have the money to investigate
Sick people couldn’t prove fracking was to blame
All the while water wells were going up in flames
Cause it’s hard to contain all the methane released
It can get into the air, it can get into the streams.
It’s a greenhouse gas, worse than CO2
Fracking done wrong could lead to climate change too
Now it’s not that drillers should never be fracking
But the current regulation is severely lacking
Reduce the toxins, contain the gas and wastewater
And the people won’t get sick and the planet won’t get hotter
What the frack is going on with all this fracking going on
I think we need some facts to come to light
I know we want our energy but nothing ever comes for free
I think my water’s on fire tonight
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Comments
Yes, OVER simplistic. Completely distortive.
Never mind that Pro Publica is on Herb Sandler's payroll, and that Herb and his wife Marion have given millions to such nonpartisan entities as MoveOn and ambulance-and-skirt-chasing John Edwards' Senate PAC. For starters -- that's just the first thing Slate gouged up, and Slate is not right wing, either. Never mind that Herb really likes to control the work product with strings attached.
Never mind that in Colorado, analyses done on the badwater wells don't show a match between the frack sauce and the goop in the water, so there's no cause and effect -- just the POTENTIAL.
Darn, we found another big stash of fossil fuel, the "best" fossil fuel, and that darn industrial society is just going to be that much harder to reform. Darn!
===quote===
Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," got a clean bill of health this week in the first scientific look at the safety of the oil and production practice...
The study released this week, done by scientists at Duke University, suggested that gas drilling causes methane gas to leak into people's water and sometimes their homes (Greenwire, May 9). But methane contamination is not caused by injecting chemicals down the well. It is caused by bad well construction during drilling.
===end quote===
Clarifying the cause is essential to understanding HOW to address it.
Our tap water contained lots of methane bubbles. Looked like champagne. Sometimes you could shake it up, light a match and get a flame burst. The bubbles would dissipate from a glassful after an hour or two.
It was no big deal...thought it kinda funny actually. We used the water for cooking, bathing, livestock, and occasionally drinking. It was naturally SOFT water. Not the tastiest but fine in a pinch.
All of us in the area assumed our bubbly water was a result of the gas well activity. As far as I know, no one ever got sick or exploded from it. It’s only NATURAL gas.