Melissa Troutman sets up to illustrate Bob Haag’s idea of the “Pressure Bulb” in chapter 8 of Triple Divide.
Whether you’re 101 to the subject or a seasoned veteran, these 10 chapters from Triple Divide will give you an exclusive understanding of fracking in the United States.
You can donate to rent Triple Divide »
1. Triple Divide
There’s a place where your water is born. Do you know where it is? For the Triple Divide “Everything is Downstream” and it’s where millions of Americans’ water is born.
2. Fracking
‘Fracking’ is now a household word that means a process where extreme pressure and fluids are pumped into the ground to break apart [sedimentary] shale rock and release trapped fossil fuels. Here’s a 101 excerpt from Triple Divide, narrated by Mark Ruffalo.
3. Exceptional Value
In Pennsylvania, the most highly regulated and protected waters of the state are classified as “Exceptional Value” or EV by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), but current regulations do not prevent irreparable harm or pollution of waterways.
4. Shoveling Water
As environmental attorney Bob Ging says in Triple Divide, maybe the most important thing anyone can do is to get a predrill water test before fracking. Although, this groundbreaking chapter reveals that predrill tests can be changed and even dismissed as evidence, killing accountability.
5. Eco-Terrorism
If you’re detained by the industry on public land, accused of being an “Ecoterrorist”, and forced to protect yourself from truck drivers, this doesn’t mean the state will take action. Fracking is taboo with politicians, and your rights may suffer from it.
6. Split-Estate
If you don’t own your mineral rights you are on your own, and surface rights landowners are at the mercy of the industry.
7. Good Neighbor
The industry’s moral handshake with the public is its “Good Neighbor” policy. This chapter teaches us what one side of the Good Neighbor looks like.
8. Pressure Bulb
In the United States we regulate the maximum amount of pressure for disposing hazardous materials underground into Class II injection wells, yet there are no regulations for the maximum amount of pressures in fracking.
9. The Judys
Right now radioactive waste pits made up of drilling mud and cuttings are being buried behind peoples homes, on public land and on farmland that grows tomorrow’s crops. It’s what’s called an ‘Alternative Waste Approval’ (or, OG71 in DEP files) and you should know if it’s happening near you or your seasonal high water table.
10. The Narrative
The narrative about fracking has changed dramatically over the last five years. When we started Triple Divide, discussing the negative impacts from fracking in northern Pennsylvania still hovered in the realm of taboo and fiction. But by 2013 things changed, and farmers who were unwilling to discuss the impacts opened up their stories to Public Herald. We end Triple Divide with everyone’s voice at the table.
“This is my life, and you’re not going to take away my life, without a fight.” – Stephen Cleghorn, Organic Goat Farmer
Triple Divide, DVD extra
