By Gregory Solman

In Fracknation, Irish investigative journalist Phelim McAleer finds a combustible metaphor for the contrived controversy of hydraulic fracturing in the footage of the Sautner family hustlers of Pennsylvania.

McAleer couldn’t politely interview the couple without Craig threatening a lawsuit (apparently emboldened by the radical National Resources Defense Council), and Julie threatening to pull a pistol on McAleer on a public road, where she voluntarily stopped to shout at him. (It’s rich to watch her sheepishly press a gun permit against the inside of her car window, demonstrating the Defense Technique When Not Being in the Least Threatened.) So McAleer pulls a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain a taping of the Sautners, apoplectic upon hearing the Environmental Protection Agency—such a right-wing frat under Lisa Jackson—confirm the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s finding that their water tests safe and clean.

McAleer notes the irony that not having contaminated water would be considered good news to all but those looking for an Erin Brockovich ending to their woes, real or imagined, or in ideological lockstep with what is now a full-fledged anti-fracking movement, replete with its own agitprop such as Josh Fox’s polemic GasLand and Gus Van Sant’s desperately “relevant” fiction, Promised Land. For the greenshirts, only bad news is good news: Recall that the same eco-special interests were all for using natural gas when it was an empty-handed gesture, when they thought we were almost out. (Their next suggestion: Francium power—but only if actually bottled in France, in IWW-run shops.)

In Fracknation, McAleer is mostly after the would-be Michael Moore, Fox, in whose disputatious documentary the Sautners display their dubiously adulterated water and others light their taps—and a large part of the impressionable public—on fire. But that’s a well-known, ancient phenomenon having nothing to do with fracking, and everything to do with methane naturally seeping wherever it can, as surely a few of Fox’s newfound celebrity friends must know from living near the La Brea Tar Pits, where the streets spontaneously combust from time to time. (Clearly, if the greenshirt “gascists” could redevelop Los Angeles, there’d be nothing within miles of mid-Wilshire—well, except maybe environmentally sensitive Ed Begley-esque manses—an area that would be turned into a no-man’s-land preserve to hasten the return of the kangaroo rat.)

When McAleer catches up to Fox—he, too, in the Moore mode—and accuses him of recklessly associating fire-water with fracking (which has never once been proven to have contaminated groundwater, occurring thousands of feet beneath the water table), Fox says, “Yes, but it’s not relevant.” And from his perspective—which smacks of Hillary Clinton’s on Benghazi—it isn’t. Despite Fox’s pose as a friendly naïve explorer in GasLand, reinforced by a lazy narrative drawl suggesting Bill Murray’s muttering groundskeeper in Caddyshack, his project aims to stop shale gas production, by any means necessary.

The moratorium on leasing that GasLand inspired animates McAleer to work the other side of the documentary-cliché fence, matching Fox’s often sincere-sounding fracking alarmists with a Depression-era revival of plaintive, tearful farmers fearful of losing their land because their gas leases have been shut off amid already hard times. Besides them, McAleer finds plenty of residents in Dimock, Pa., who don’t appreciate GasLand’s suggestion that their homesteads are toxic wastelands, inhabited by greedy despoilers and easy marks for Matt Damon.

McAleer systematically eviscerates GasLand’s false implications and sloppy inferences (finally, not even distinguishing between oil and gas production, and instantly trotting out a Halliburton/Cheney conspiracy, the not-so-secret handshake of Club 9/11 Truth). McAleer interviews specialists who assure us that the mathematical detection of seismic activity does not constitute an earthquake (and that the greenshirts’ beloved geothermal energy is worse). He unveils collusion between biased government officials, liberal media, non-governmental organizations and their Hollywood waterboys. He embarrasses Fox, a Columbia University grad, for his woeful ignorance of physics, engineering and chemistry.

Fracknation then travels to Europe to suggest that new-school communism under Vlad Putin has a hidden hand behind the anti-fracking agenda, so that Russia can continue to use a gas monopoly in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe as a political cudgel, turning it on or off as it pleases, and charging little old ladies in Poland half their pensions for gas and electricity, bringing to mind Dr. Zhivago’s arrests for foraging firewood. (He might have contrasted their plight with the thousands of Californians driving natural-gas Honda Civics—the cleanest cars on the planet, including electrics—for an unsubsidized $1.36 a gallon, thanks to fracking, what reasonable people call a win-win.)
Fracknation’s timing is good, though it’s unlikely to crack already ossified myths or affect fracking’s prospects, when even the use of that vulgar-sounding nickname is as devious as cubic zirconia ads referring to the genuine article as “mined diamonds.” Fracking friends and foes—and the movies they love—have formed skirmish lines almost identical to those of the climate-change controversy.

So we’re going nowhere from here. But it’s heartening to see someone take on a few of the anecdotal, unscientific and politically motivated accusations against the practice, before they, too, become immune to counter evidence.

The frack list (neuropathy, fish kills, cancer, dead bunny rabbits, migraines, animal hair loss, neighborhoods erupting in flames) is already reminiscent of the hysterical global-warming compilations which currently run from “acne” to “yellow fever”—until “aardvark population decline” and “yam rust” are added by someone, anyone, somewhere. The same camps have enlisted the same recruits, including anti-capitalists out to control the economy by fiat, communist style; enrich themselves, like Qatar’s over-compensated useful idiot, Al Gore; or just feel morally superior to others and, in the sweetly juvenile manner of the Mars Attacks! teen hero, suggest, to a mariachi version of the national anthem, that “maybe, instead of houses, we could live in tepees, ’cause it’s better, in a lot of ways.”

Parts of Lower Manhattan may spend the holidays and beyond hooked up to noisy, noxious generators if building management companies don’t soon finish necessary repairs.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, many downtown Manhattan buildings relied on emergency generators for power in an effort to return to normalcy. As of last week, Council Member Margaret Chin’s office reported 105 emergency generators were still operating downtown, providing electricity to these buildings.

While these generators may be necessary in an emergency, community members and elected officials are concerned over why they still have such a prominent presence downtown. The generators emit potent, potentially hazardous fumes and often deafening noises. They also appear to be running largely unregulated by city agencies, which have not demonstrated much oversight in the situation, according to downtown’s elected officials.

“Many of the streets in Lower Manhattan, particularly in the Financial District, are literally lined with [these] generators,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. “We all know that after 9/11, thousands of Lower Manhattan residents were exposed to air that caused serious health problems, and we cannot allow that to happen again.”

A Con Edison spokesperson explained that the buildings’ management companies are responsible for the generators still in place.

“They’re the ones who bore the brunt,” he said.

Chin’s office agreed that Con Edison is not to blame for the delay. The buildings’ management companies reportedly continue to push back the dates when they’ll be ready to reconnect to power, now giving time frames as late as April in some cases.

“Con Edison is willing and ready to hook these buildings back up,” said Kelly Magee, a spokesperson for the council member. “The buildings are not ready to receive power. The buildings have some kind of issue, whether it’s damage to the transformer or a part that needs a replacement—they’re unable to hook back up to the grid.”

Magee said these buildings’ management companies would not return their phone calls and there was no explanation as to why the dates kept getting pushed back. She speculated building management companies are taking advantage of this opportunity to make other repairs to their buildings. Without incentive for the management companies and enforcement by the city, she said there’s not enough pressure for the companies to act in a timely fashion.

Once a building is ready to be hooked back up to the Con Edison grid, only a quick inspection is necessary before this can take place.

Council Member Chin, whose Lower Manhattan district has many such generators, is disappointed in the city’s response thus far. She said her office has received many residential complaints over the last month and that she’s repeatedly reached out to the city and tried to work through official channels.

One woman called the council member’s office to complain she had fainted while exiting a downtown subway because of the overwhelming fumes released by the generators.

“The residents are contacting our office and saying they need help—these fumes are going right into their apartments,” explained Chin. “People have been very patient and they understand it’s an emergency, but week after week … it’s taking too long.”

“The Department of Health needs to provide solutions,” said Chin. “Now they’re saying seal off your windows with plastic—that’s not an appropriate way to live.”

“The phone calls are seriously disturbing,” added Magee.

Magee said the council member’s office has been working to get the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene to come out and regularly conduct inspections of the generators.

“What it seems like to us is in the beginning there was an emergency situation; a lot was done without much oversight, and it wasn’t until we asked for enforcement that the DEP started doing anything,” Magee said.

“We go and look around ourselves, and we can see the smoke spewing out,” she added. “The DEP needs to be down there every single day, and they need to get the dirty ones out.”

The council member said it seemed not much thought had been given to the generators’ physical placement either.

“To be listening to one 24 hours a day is a lot to ask of residents,” said Chin, who explained they were loud enough to drown out any conversation in the street.

Ryan Carlino works on Water Street, right by the river. He said he was not allowed to return to his office building until Dec. 4.

“We literally have to walk through a tunnel of generators to get to the entrance of our building,” he said. “There’s smoke everywhere. It constantly smells like diesel fumes.”

“I’m sure they’re safe, I guess,” he added. “They were OK’d by the EPA. But they look like they could blow up or electrocute someone at any point.”

The generators are also loud, according to Carlino. “The noise isn’t a huge inconvenience since you can’t hear them inside,” he said. “It’s just really weird and post-apocalyptic walking through them to get to work.”

When asked how he knew the generator had been approved by the EPA, Carlino said his company’s operations coordinators told workers the EPA had checked them out.

A Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson confirmed that DEP inspectors are going block by block in Lower Manhattan to ensure that all generators are properly certified and are meeting emissions standards, and the DEP has also teamed up with the city’s Health Department and the state Department of Environmental Conservation to monitor air quality. The agencies have installed three additional air testing sites since Hurricane Sandy and have not detected patterns of higher concentrations of particulate matter.

While they may technically be safe, the generators are still a huge nuisance. In many cases, residents cannot understand why the generators powering some commercial buildings must remain running all night.

“Imagine that happening continuously all day long and at night when people are supposed to be sleeping,” said Chin. “We have families and lots of young kids down here.”

Chin said the city has already established a rapid repair program with residential buildings, one which might soon have to extend to commercial buildings as well.

“It’s unacceptable that they will be there all winter,” she said. “If there are missing parts, get them.”
While the noise and pollutants affect residents and workers in the area, Chin is particularly concerned about generators operating directly outside of a downtown school complex.

“We need all the help we can get,” said Chin. “We want this done by Christmas. This is our Christmas present.”

Carlino is at least glad to be back in his own office building despite the generators. “We were up in Times Square,” he said. “It was awful.”

Hurricane Sandy has long since passed, but concern remains over lasting environmental hazards

Though the waters have receded after Hurricane Sandy, many downtown residents may be facing a yet-unseen but potentially hazardous problem as a result of the severe flooding. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who represents Lower Manhattan communities hit especially hard by the storm, has expressed concern over what he predicts will be a serious mold and contaminant problem in homes and workplaces that found themselves in the flood zone.

“We must not repeat the same mistakes of 9/11 by leaving people to their own devices to clean up complex toxins without proper guidance or assistance from the federal government,” Nadler said in a statement, urging federal oversight of mold and toxin cleanup following the storm.

Nadler has contacted both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to insist that comprehensive testing for mold and toxins be conducted in homes and workplaces affected by the storm.

David Frome, owner of the Air Cleaner Store and an expert in mold and toxins, said Nadler’s concern is justified.

“Sandy’s floods released toxic chemicals and biologic waste into the water,” said Frome. “Sheetrock and carpeting that was soaked by the storm’s water should be treated as hazardous waste. Removing it safely needs to be our first priority.”

Frome said everyone who experienced flooding is at risk for mold and mold spore exposure, which is “perhaps the largest of the immediate health problems.”

“The Federal government has not established safe levels of mold exposure,” Frome explained. “Each person has a different sensitivity. Some people can be exposed to high concentrations of mold without effect; others can develop a range of symptoms.”

According to Howland “Howdy” Russell, the spokesperson for Paul Davis National, a cleanup service that specializes in natural disasters, the complex cleanup process is already under way in badly affected areas of New York, where the group had been deployed following the storm.

“It’s quite a challenge, as the buildings are filled with sand, mud and debris,” Russell said. “A key priority is to contain and control any microbial growth right away, ensuring a healthy and safe environment for the property owners and families.”

Others insist there’s no reason for New Yorkers to panic about the issue. Ron Alford, a crisis management and recovery coach whose official website says he has “spent his lifetime helping other people in a crisis,” believes the issue of mold is exaggerated as a money-making scheme.

“The mold, asbestos, lead issues are overblown and are in my opinion scare tactics that the new mold industry uses to scare people out of their money,” Alford said.

“There is not one active kitchen or bathroom in NYC that does not have some form of mold,” he added.

While Alford believes the mold-related fear-mongering is hyperbolized in the wake of Sandy, he said he does not feel qualified to comment on the toxic after-effects of 9/11.

Bob Carlson, who has taught mold remediation for years and helped draft a textbook on the subject, echoed Alford, saying the important thing is not to overreact to the situation.

“People freak out when they don’t need to, and miss the insidious hazards that may be lurking,” said Carlson.

“There are many thousands of species of mold, and they come in all colors,” he said. “Aspergillus floats in the air easily, and is one of the most common genera of mold out there.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most people breathe this mold’s spores on a regular basis.

Carlson said with some of the most dangerous molds, you would have to go out of your way to have them be of any consequence to your health.

His analysis of some of the unpredictable aspects of the environmental impact, however, was a bit on the ominous side.

“As far as toxins go, after disasters all kinds of stuff happens,” Carlson said. “Underground storage tanks pop out of the ground, aboveground tanks collapse, pipelines rupture, 55-gallon drums go floating downstream—you name it.”

In The Avengers movie that opened recently, Mark Ruffalo plays the Incredible Hulk, a creature born from a scientific experiment gone awry who joins a team of superheroes seeking to save the world. The risks of scientific progress and efforts to save the planet are also at play in his real-world battle against hydraulic fracturing, Ruffalo tells City & State.
What follows is an edited transcript.

City & State: How did you become involved in fracking activism?
Mark Ruffalo: I heard about hydrofracking before I moved my family to New York, and I thought it was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It was going to bring this vibrant new economy to upstate New York. But I also started to hear some questionable things about it. So I went to the old Internet and started doing some research. At this time, there was very little to learn. The gas industry is very rosy and extremely positive. There were inklings from EPA whistleblowers and people in Wyoming whose homes were filling with gas and were coming up with these neurological disorders from the drinking water. So I decided, “I have to go look at this for myself.”

CS: Where did you go?
MR: I went to Dimock, Pa. It wasn’t really to find anything wrong. It was just to see what was going on. But in a room of 40 people, it became clear to me that these people were under siege in their life, and the American dream was betrayed. What about the EPA? The EPA wouldn’t allow something like this to happen. Well, this isn’t regulated by the EPA, really. Well, what about the DEP? Well, they’ve pretty much turned their back on us. What about your attorney general? They’re not interested. There were victims there, and basically they were being told they were lying. You had these Americans who obviously had a problem, and everybody turned their backs on them. I didn’t want to get involved, honestly. But if I am who I say—I care about people and I care about injustice—then I realized this is coming to my community, where there are people that I love and I care for, and it can’t happen like this.

CS: But fracking could create jobs in New York’s poorer regions.
MR: There’s only a fraction of the jobs the industry says they’ll create. They tend to be incredibly transient. Cornell did a study last year on what the effects would be, especially in small communities that rely on pristine water and pristine air. A lot of these communities have only agriculture and tourism to support them. What happens is the community is left worse off after the bust. A few people end up making a lot of money. It doesn’t make its way out to the rest of the community. The workers leave. The area is left with less economic diversity. It kills off other industries. I understand that we’re in bad times. The other thing that’s interesting to point out is the fastest growing job sector right now in the United States, at 10–18 percent a year, is the green sector, or the renewable energy sector.

CS: In your experience, are people aware of the hydrofracking issue?
MR: When I started three years ago, I just thought, There’s no way. We’re done for. We have the biggest industries in the world; we have Exxon Mobil and Chesapeake just dumping so much money. It was a done deal. Thousands of families have reported contamination now. These people are poor, they’re desperate. When their wells become contaminated, their properties become worthless. They turn to the gas industry, and the gas industry says, “We didn’t contaminate your well, but we will buy you out and give you water if you sign a nondisclosure agreement.” We will never know these people’s stories. You have people in Dimock, and some people in Wyoming now, these mothers whose children have come down with asthma and weird autoimmune-deficiency diseases, whose schools are right next to compressor stations, and they’re getting together and they’re starting to get their stories out. They’re not taking the short money, which is what we’re seeing in Dimock. They’re saying, “No, we’re going to live through this, we’ve been wronged and we’re going to get our stories out.” It’s very different now than it was even a year ago. Fracking is a national issue. There’s a lot of new information coming out, and the longer this goes on, the more we’re going to find out how damning it is.

CS: What has been the most rewarding part of your activism on this issue to date?
MR: I have to say what I wrote when this first started happening, in my local newspaper. The title of it was called “Thank God for Hydrofracking.” And people thought that was a crazy thing. What I saw was, and this came from my experiences in Pennsylvania, was that what we were seeing was the quality and character of a community. And we were going to be tested on what we were made of as a community. Were we willing to basically screw our neighbors to make a buck, knowing that there’s a good chance that their well water could be contaminated? The problem with the whole property-rights movement around this is that these people are drilling 5,000 feet out from their properties, so they’re drilling into every other property that abuts them for a mile. And now you’ve infringed on my property rights. When that gas and that methane is seeping out of those casings and ending up in my well, you’ve infringed on my property rights. So the community suffers. What I’m seeing is these incredibly brave people who are really Americans who are standing up for something that’s right, who aren’t selling themselves out for the short money, who have an idea that’s bigger than It’s just me against you, and I’m going to get mine and you can screw off.

CS: Are there similarities between The Avengers and the fight against hydrofracking?
MR: Superheroes have always been the guys that fight for the common good. That’s what I responded to as a kid. They always fought for the little guy. That’s what this fight is about. If the gas industry was just honest about what they do and how they do it, they wouldn’t have such a nightmare on their hands. I am beginning to feel like the only way they can make money is to do it the way they’re doing, to bypass regulations, to lie when contamination happens, to manipulate the markets. Now we’re seeing Aubrey McClendon and Chesapeake and the whole thing of them manipulating the markets and lying to their investors. If they could do this safely and in a way that was aboveboard, then they would do it. So you have a malicious, malign force out there that’s doing damage and in some way needs to be stopped. And that’s the kind of thing that superheroes come to the rescue to. The superheroes today are my neighbors.

CS: You play the Incredible Hulk, who was created by a freak accident during a bomb test. Does that kind of cautionary tale relate to hydrofracking and its repercussions?
MR: There’s a long line of scientific experiments gone bad in history and in storytelling, and it’s something we go back to all the time. It’s all over the comic books. It’s in our consciousness and our subconscious as a culture. We personify it in our mythologies as superheroes and we live next to it in our lives, such as Fukushima and what’s happening at Dimock. This is a struggle that will continue to go on as we become more desperate for this type of carbon energy. Long gone are the days when we simply stick a straw in the ground and get beautiful concentrated carbon energy percolating to the surface with very little impact to the area around us. Now we’ve entered the era of extreme energy extraction: It’s hydrofracking, it’s deep-sea drilling, it’s mountaintop removal, it’s tar sands. These are the new norm, and they’re incredibly dangerous, incredibly toxic, and they’re accelerating global warming at an unprecedented rate. And that’s what we’re going to be stuck with. Just like the superhero disasters.

CS: I know you’re in a hurry—and I really don’t want to make you angry and have you turn into the Hulk—but did you have a favorite superhero as a kid?
MR: The Hulk. The TV show was my favorite, with Bill Bixby. I loved that show.

CS: So it’s come full circle?
MR: Yeah. I got lucky. In a lot of ways.

jlentz@cityandstateny.com

This article first appeared in the May 7, 2012, edition of City&State.

In The Avengers movie that opened this past weekend, Mark Ruffalo plays the Incredible Hulk, a creature born from a scientific experiment gone awry who joins a team of superheroes seeking to save the world. The risks of scientific progress and efforts to save the planet are also at play in his real-world battle against hydraulic fracturing, Ruffalo tells City & State.
What follows is an edited transcript.

City & State: How did you become involved in fracking activism?

Mark Ruffalo: I heard about hydrofracking before I moved my family to New York, and I thought it was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It was going to bring this vibrant new economy to upstate New York. But I also started to hear some questionable things about it. So I went to the old Internet and started doing some research. At this time, there was very little to learn. The gas industry is very rosy and extremely positive. There were inklings from EPA whistleblowers and people in Wyoming whose homes were filling with gas and were coming up with these neurological disorders from the drinking water. So I decided, “I have to go look at this for myself.”

CS: Where did you go?

MR: I went to Dimock, Pa. It wasn’t really to find anything wrong. It was just to see what was going on. But in a room of 40 people, it became clear to me that these people were under siege in their life, and the American dream was betrayed. What about the EPA? The EPA wouldn’t allow something like this to happen. Well, this isn’t regulated by the EPA, really. Well, what about the DEP? Well, they’ve pretty much turned their back on us. What about your attorney general? They’re not interested. There were victims there, and basically they were being told they were lying. You had these Americans who obviously had a problem, and everybody turned their backs on them. I didn’t want to get involved, honestly. But if I am who I say—I care about people and I care about injustice—then I realized this is coming to my community, where there are people that I love and I care for, and it can’t happen like this.

CS: But fracking could create jobs in New York’s poorer regions.

MR: There’s only a fraction of the jobs the industry says they’ll create. They tend to be incredibly transient. Cornell did a study last year on what the effects would be, especially in small communities that rely on pristine water and pristine air. A lot of these communities have only agriculture and tourism to support them. What happens is the community is left worse off after the bust. A few people end up making a lot of money. It doesn’t make its way out to the rest of the community. The workers leave. The area is left with less economic diversity. It kills off other industries. I understand that we’re in bad times. The other thing that’s interesting to point out is the fastest growing job sector right now in the United States, at 10–18 percent a year, is the green sector, or the renewable-energy sector.

CS: In your experience, are people aware of the hydrofracking issue?

MR: When I started three years ago, I just thought, There’s no way. We’re done for. We have the biggest industries in the world; we have Exxon Mobil and Chesapeake just dumping so much money. It was a done deal. Thousands of families have reported contamination now. These people are poor, they’re desperate. When their wells become contaminated, their properties become worthless. They turn to the gas industry, and the gas industry says, “We didn’t contaminate your well, but we will buy you out and give you water if you sign a nondisclosure agreement.” We will never know these people’s stories. You have people in Dimock, and some people in Wyoming now, these mothers whose children have come down with asthma and weird autoimmune-deficiency diseases, whose school is right next to compressor stations, and they’re getting together and they’re starting to get their stories out. They’re not taking the short money, which is what we’re seeing in Dimock. They’re saying, “No, we’re going to live through this, we’ve been wronged, and we’re going to get our stories out.” It’s very different now than it was even a year ago. Fracking is a national issue. There’s a lot of new information coming out, and the longer this goes on, the more we’re going to find out how damning it is.

To read the full interview at City & State click here.