Air pollution of fracking - Essay Example

In this essay, we shall discuss the documentary and the changes that have occurred since its production in 2010. ‘Gasland’ is an American documentary film produced in 2010 by Josh Fox to educate and enlighten communities in the United States of America on the impact of natural gas drilling especially horizontal drilling otherwise known as fracking. Fox starts the movie with narrating how he received a letter in May 2008 requesting him to lease his family land in Pennsylvania for $ 100, 000 to drill for gas, a claim that Energy In Depth later refuted arguing that it did not offer anyone money to lease his land for drilling gas.

Fox goes to the west where the process of mining natural gas through fracking has been for the last 10 years. He engaged and stayed with the residents as they narrated their stories and experiences of natural gas drilling in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Texas among other several states, he talked with residents of those areas who had developed chronic ailments that can be directly traced to contaminated air quality and pollution of water wells and surface. Fox goes ahead to show how some of the residents who have been affected by the negative effects of pollution from fracking have obtained court injunctions and settlements in terms of money from the gas mining companies in order to replace the water supplies that have been affected with safe drinking water or portable water purification kits.

In his documentary, Josh Fox tries to reach out to the scientists, politicians and executives and all stakeholders in the gas mining industry. In addition to congress sub-committee, which was tasked with discussing the ‘fracking responsibility and awareness of chemicals act’, which was intended to amend the ‘safe drinking water act’ to repeal the exemption of hydraulic fracturing from safe drinking water act. Since 2010, a lot of changes have happened in the gas mining industry with relation to the process of mining that uses hydraulic fracturing.

despite the concerns that have been raised over the pollution levels of the process, the number of gas wells that are being sunk have been constantly increasing with estimations putting that there are at least 35 wells that are being drilled daily for the last one decade. This has been largely contributed by the federal government’s laxity to enact federal laws that regulate the use of hydraulic fracturing in mining gas. In 2012, more than 30 million cubic feet of natural gas were drilled, which signified about 25 per cent, increase since the year 2006 (Anonymous, 13).

Most of the proponents of the process have argued that the process of hydraulic fracturing could help the country become energy independent by the year 2020 and supply the country with relatively cheap and clean energy for the next 90 years. In addition, the states that have been using hydraulic fracturing to mine natural gas have been able to create recession resistant economies that have withered the economic storm that had swept the country in the last 5 years. However, despite these benefits, people living within the areas that these mining companies operate have always complained about the noise and air pollution that include odours that comes from these companies.

The environmental protection agency study in 2011, which tested water and air in Wyoming where