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In-Depth Information
drofracking process. “Our hope,” said Amos, “is that this information will promote
discussion.”
In another instance of citizen initiative, Jamie Serra, who works for the
Pennsylvania state legislature, created Fracktrack.org, a site that coalesces massive
amounts of information about gas development in one site. The notion is to rely on
thousands of data points to enhance transparency and understanding, to eliminate
bias, and to help citizens understand what's happening around them.
“After seeing how many people were looking for information that existed but
wasn't made readily available by the government,” Serra said, he decided to “help
complete missing and inaccurate data sets that are poorly designed and aren't man-
dated.… The numbers are no longer worth arguing over when we have the ability
to generate and verify millions of responses in real-time.”
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There are also ways for communities and even individuals to identify gas leaks
and map drilling activities. These are not substitutes for effective regulation, but
they can be useful supplements. Some concerned citizens have banded together as
“methane monitors,” to search out and report gas leaks around hydrofracking sites.
They could potentially be compensated for this investigative work with rewards
worth thousands of dollars under the Clean Air Act, much like “watershed watch-
dog” citizen groups help enforce Clean Water Act regulations.
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Josh Fox, the director of
GasLand
, and other “fracktivists” advocate the use of
infrared video cameras to show methane emissions from gas and oil facilities. This
can be an empowering tool, though one drawback is that people who don't prop-
erly decipher infrared images confuse standard heat emissions with methane emis-
sions. Some experienced environmentalists, such as Walter Hang, who compiles
data maps at his company, Toxic Targeting, warn that well-intentioned but error-
prone citizen initiatives can undermine more professional efforts.
54
In 2010, Congress requested that the EPA study the extent of hydrofracking's im-
pact on the environment. In 2011, for the first time, the EPA chose seven natural
Shale, in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, and in the Marcellus Shale in Washington
County, Pennsylvania—were chosen because they had not yet been hydrofracked.
