GasLand

When filmmaker Josh Fox received an unexpected offer of $100,000 for the natural gas drilling rights to his property in the Delaware River Basin, on the border of New York and Pennsylvania, he resisted the urge to accept. Instead, he set off on a cross-country journey to investigate the environmental risks of agreeing to the deal. Part verite road trip, part expose, part mystery and part showdown, GASLAND follows director Fox on a 24-state investigation of the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing. What he uncovers is mind-boggling: tap water so contaminated it can be set on fire right out of the tap chronically ill residents with similar symptoms in drilling areas across the country and huge pools of toxic waste that kill livestock and vegetation. GASLAND is Fox's urgent, cautionary and sometimes darkly comic look at the largest domestic natural gas drilling campaign in history, which is currently sweeping the country and promising landowners a quick payoff. This shocking expose shows that America's zeal to produce homegrown natural gas, often touted as "clean burning," may be poisoning the water and air. The timely documentary won the Documentary Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.