Producer/Director
Mark Harvey
and Director
of Photography
Greg Poschman
Photo by
Laurel Garrett |
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On location in Montana: Karl Rappold, Co-Producer Laurel Garrett, DP Greg Poschman and Cameraman Edgar Boyles
Photo by
Mark Harvey |
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Editor
Scott Davis &
Producer/Director
Mark Harvey
Photo by
Laurel Garrett |
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ABOUT
THE FILM : Mark Harvey's Director's Statement
Download
the Poster (8x10) |
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Download
the Poster (8x10) |
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The gas drilling
boom here in the Rocky Mountain West caught
me totally off guard as it has many Westerners.
Unless you were an energy analyst, it
just didn’t occur to you that the
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management
would suddenly be leasing millions of
acres to the gas and oil industry and
then issuing tens of thousands of permits
to drill all over the heart of the West.
But when the gas boom really got going,
it was obvious that, left unchecked,
it would transform the Rocky Mountains
forever. We’re seeing thousands
of miles of roads being built on unspoiled
ground to develop gas wells, billions
of gallons of water pumped from the
aquifers of Montana and Wyoming to develop
coal-bed methane wells, and the ruin
of the wild places we depend on to hunt,
fish, and hike. We’re watching
great swaths of America’s Western
geography being rendered into an industrial
landscape.
And for what? A few days or weeks supply
of natural gas, spread over the next
couple of decades. It's woefully short
of the kind of supplies that would lower
prices or make us energy independent.
This land grab is short-sighted in the
extreme, the modern equivalent of breaking
up the furniture for firewood.
To say that we have to choose between
cheap energy or conserving the Rockies'
premiere lands is misleading and Westerners
are waking up to that fact. We can reject
the Bush Administration's false choice
with a common sense energy policy. Renewable
energy and energy efficiency are the
answer, supplemented by careful use
of our remaining fossil fuels. This
is a fight for balance--we can keep
our last wild places and meet our energy
needs too. Citizens from Montana to
New Mexico are calling for a new energy
policy that will leave something of
the West still intact.
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