The development of enormous reserves of American energy from tight formations such as shale has been hailed as a “game-changer” by the Energy Information Administration as playing a “key role in our nation’s clean energy future,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and as a means of helping our country “create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper,” President Obama said earlier this year.
But for one mother in rural northeast Pennsylvania, the only real question that mattered was this: Is the process used to develop these resources safe? Or is it the way “Gasland” star Josh Fox tried to portray it in his HBO documentary: dangerous, dirty and disruptive – and completely unregulated, to boot? Shelly – a mother, grandmother, farmer, teacher and landowner from Susquehanna County – needed answers, for herself, her family and her community. So she went looking for those answers. Her journey, and her search for the truth, is captured and chronicled in the short film Truthland.
A first-of-its-kind project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and Energy In Depth (EID), the costs associated with the production of the 34-minute film were underwritten by industry – but none of the experts who appear in the movie (Shelly included) were paid for their participation. The only thing they were asked was to tell the truth: as best they knew it, and however they saw it. Those interviews comprise Truthland, with extended, unedited interviews available at TruthlandMovie.com.
“When we were told we could have natural gas under our farm, we felt very blessed,” said Shelly, who interviewed more than a dozen energy and environmental experts in six states. “But that excitement was tempered somewhat by the negative stories we had heard about hydraulic fracturing. Then came ‘Gasland,’ and that made it even tougher to determine what the truth really was. Well, the science teacher in me had questions, and I owed it to my family to go out and find out what was real. To get our questions answered, I knew I needed to go where the experts were. And so, that’s exactly what I did.”
The screening will be held August 8 and is free and open to the public and media. The event will begin at
5:30 p.m. and will feature a brief reception, followed by a screening of Truthland and an expert panel to answer questions regarding the development of natural gas from shale resources.
Event Details:
Where– West Virginia Junior College- Bridgeport Campus
176 Thompson Drive, Bridgeport, WV 26330
When– 5:30 p.m.
