Allegheny Front: Does Damon get fracking right; gas, guns, and pipelines
Author: State Impact’s Susan Phillips
It was only a matter of time before someone made a feature movie about fracking. Promised Land is billed as an anti-fracking movie, a movie about the tough choices rural places have to make, and the role of big business in the country’s new energy frontiers. The movie has been generally praised by environmentalists, and panned by the industry. And it’s introduced a wider audience to the contentious debate surrounding fracking. The natural gas industry and its advocates have called out the filmmakers (Co-writers Matt Damon and John Krasinski, director Gus Van Sant, from a story by Dave Eggers) for playing fast and loose with the facts. Indeed, the film—intentionally, it would seem—changes around different facts to amp up the narrative tension and make the plot flow.
Air date: Week of 06/14/2012
Author: Reid Frazer
Back on his farm after serving his first-ever jail sentence, 73-year-old Joe Bezjak said this week he couldn’t wait for state environmental inspectors to show up at his property after seeing pipeline workers dump mine water onto his land. So he broke a judge’s order not to communicate with the workers, and paid for it with a weekend at the Fayette County jail.