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00:00:42 | COMM Northern Poland. This is a picturesque land of farms, rolling hills and pristine forests. The people are fiercely independent and proud of their unique home. But some are worried. Poland has found itself caught up in the global hunt for natural resources. The region around the city of Gdansk is rich in underground gas, and energy companies want to drill for it. But to do so they have to utilise a controversial method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. In the US, fracking has been linked to a host of social and environmental problems. |
| 2. 00:00:48 | ARCHIVE (Fracking Hell) It makes me mad, makes me very mad, because my life is over without my water. |
| 3. 00:00:53 | COMM These rural Polish communities have heard the horror stories, and don't want it in their backyard. But the fracking industry disputes such concerns. |
| 4. SUPER Chris Faulkner, CEO, Brietling Oil and Gas 00:01:03 | SYNC We’ve allowed folks to go speak for us, others like Josh Fox and Gasland, environmentalists, folks who have an agenda, and that agenda, sometimes, is based on misinformation. |
| 5. 00:01:16 | COMM Fracking is spreading globally, from the US, into Europe, the former USSR and well beyond. Some countries, France included, have imposed a moratorium. Others, including Poland, have embraced it and over 100 concessions have recently been awarded. The Ecologist travelled to Poland twice to investigate this new frontier. |
| 6. TITLE Fracking Hell? Poland’s dash for gas |
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| 7. 00:01:43 | COMM Edward Sawicki is an organic farmer in this tiny Kashubian village. His farm sits on a gas hot spot. |
| 8. SUPER Edward Sawicki, Farmer 00:01:52 | SYNC It all started when seismic companies, the ones commissioned by the exploitation companies, started intrude on us last year. And it was not only intrusion, it was harassment and terrorizing, threats of expropriation, financial fines, different things. |
| 9. 00:02:16 | COMM He is worried about the impact on water sources in the region, particularly if chemicals used in fracking processes leak. He believes other forms of pollution may follow. |
| 10. Edward Sawicki 00:02:27 | SYNC How will the air we breathe be treated? I mean, how will the gas be treated? What’s left by the mining is not, as the government says, green gas. All the mess will stay here with us, I am afraid. |
| 11. 00:02:49 | COMM Some here do accept that Poland's gas reserves are economically important, but are opposed to the fracking process itself. |
| 12. SUPER Local Resident, Niesiolowice 00:02:57 | SYNC I’d like some thought to be given to a different way of mining. Yes gas is needed, but should the price be paid by nature and the people who live here? |
| 13. SUPER Dr Wlodzimierz Zgoda, Medical University of Gdansk 00:03:14 | SYNC People, certainly, will experience loss. Especially those who invested in tourism and its potential. The threats of spills or pollution of the environment will discourage buyers from buying agricultural produce. |
| 14. 00:03:36 | COMM In this village, in the grip of the Polish winter, farmers are also concerned. |
| 15. SUPER Mieczyslaw Rutkowski, Farmer 00:03:42 | SYNC We have farmed here for four generations and the land here passes from father to son and is inherited. There is a great hunger for this land so we are very worried because this is our life, for our families for our children and also our future. And we know that without water we can’t live. Water is not only needed for the crops but also for our people and livestock to live. |
| 16. 00:04:05 | COMM They maintain they were given very little information by either the gas company or the authorities before gas drilling began. |
| 17. Mieczyslaw Rutkowski 00:04:13 | SYNC I don’t actually know much about it. There has been very little information provided. But from what I’ve read the mud from the drilling can pass through the water here at various depths and the water can be contaminated. |
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| COMM Residents here say the gas industry has presented a misleading image of fracking. |
| 19. SUPER Hieronim Wiecek, Anti-fracking activist 00:04:38 | SYNC The companies at the village meetings told us that there is a hole, which has three cement pipes embedded in concrete and that there is no possibility of gas entering the water or the mud from the drilling. We know from conversations on the internet with people from Canada and Pennsylvania, that the mud from the drilling which comes out after fracturing, penetrates the ground waters and contaminates the soil. |
| 20. 00:05:15 | COMM The film maker behind GasLand, Josh Fox, recently pledged solidarity with Polish activists campaigning against fracking. |
| 21. 00:05:22 | ARCHIVE (Youtube) There’s no evidence right now that shale gas can be developed sustainably. There’s no evidence that we can withstand what this would mean for our climate. |
| 22. 00:05:32 | COMM But fracking is the only way to extract shale gas, according to Chris Faulkner. |
| 23. Chris Faulkner 00:05:38 | SYNC There is currently absolutely no way to extract shale gas without using hydraulic stimulation or fracking so there is no substitute for it currently. Without it there is no discussion of how shale‘s going impact anything because there'll be no shale gas coming out of the ground. |
| 24. 00:05:54 | COMM He rejects the claim that communities have been left in the dark or mis-informed. |
| 25. Chris Faulkner 00:05:58 | SYNC I've been to Poland, I've attended meetings in villages where oil and gas companies, including Chevron, have sat with people and explained to them what is happening, what the process is, and how it's going to impact the communities. So I don't believe that every single person is being left in the dark, some folks feel like they have, but the information is being disseminated. |
| 26. 00:06:18 | COMM He also rejects that fracking will lead to contamination of water sources |
| 27. Chris Faulkner 00:06:22 | SYNC Now I don’t believe that we’re contaminating drinking water, I don’t believe that what we’re doing is harmful to the environment, or I would not be doing it. |
| 28. 00:06:31 | COMM But critics highlight concerns over drinking water supplies. |
| 29. Dr Wlodzimierz Zgoda 00:06:34 | SYNC Furthermore, there is a huge reservoir of drinking water, strategic, around Gdansk. Taking into consideration the number of wells, the probability of some sort of contamination is close to 100 per cent. |
| 30. 00:06:55 | COMM They say the fracking industry has embarked on an glossy PR exercise to win over hearts and minds. Local people say the fracking industry has even used the Church's influence to persuade people that fracking is safe – and that it will benefit the community. |
| 31. Mieczyslaw Rutkowski 00:07:15 | SYNC The vicar was there and he consecrated the opening ceremony. I was really surprised that our priest approved and supported that investment, which threatens our existence… We’re his parishioners! |
| 32. SUPER Secret filming 00:07:28 | COMM We tracked down the priest alleged to have been involved. |
| 33. SUPER Secret filming 00:07:32
00:07:47 00:07:50
00:08:02 00:08:04 | ACTUALITY PRIEST: I just blessed the drilling rig because I was asked to do so...but there were no strings attached MAREK: No donations for the church? PRIEST: No, no, no, there was only a sum dedicated to children... 5,000 PLN for the children who were about to go to a summer camp. MAREK: They gave 5,000 Zlotys… PRIEST: Please, do not translate this, there is no need. |
| FADE TO BLACK | |
| 34. Chris Faulkner 00:08:10
| SYNC Potential is bright, I think it’s going to take some time, it won’t happen over night. But I think Poland is off to great start. Though the early success may be questionable, but would expect to see that in frontier plain where you don’t have any experience, no knowledge, where you’re trying to chart pathway forward. |
| 35. Dr Wlodzimierz Zgoda 00:08:29 | SYNC It will no longer be a protected landscape that’s good for tourism. It will be a mining landscape. We are always given the U.S. example where shale has was a success, but there are a lot of differences here. |
| 36. 00:08:43 | COMM Whatever the coming months – and years – hold for these rural communities, those advocating fracking have their work cut out. |
| FADE TO BLACK | |