“They made a mistake when they let them in here.”

“I’m not happy with what my tax dollars are paying for.”

“You can’t sit on your porch anymore. The quiet of the valley is gone.”

“The land is raped. The land will never be the same.”

These are the quotes from farmers and landowners in Washington County, Pa., after natural gas drilling commenced there not too long ago. None of them gave their names; one speaker even refused to be photographed. But what they all had in common was their willingness to share their disappointment and disgust with Bo Samajopoulos, a filmmaker from Brooklyn.

“I have no vested interest in the issue of natural gas drilling one way or another,” he said. “I just go out and see what’s out there. And what I found appalled me.”

Samajopoulos made his film on the recommendation of the Damascus Citizens for Sustainability; it was shown at their Saturday night meeting held in the Delaware Valley Youth Center in Callicoon, NY. Over 400 attended. It was part of a series of presentations given by organizers, geologists, and concerned citizens on the natural gas drilling that could begin soon in our area.

“As a grassroots effort, our role is now significant,” said Pat Carullo, a founding member of the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition and speaker at the event. “There is currently no body existing between the community and the natural gas industry...our role will be to protect private property, public health, and the integrity of the river system.”

The risks all three entities face are very real, explains DCS spokesperson Barbara Arrindell. Arrindell is both an artist and the holder of a degree in Bioengineering from Columbia University, two disparate fields which have in common a desire to let the work speak for itself. Arrindell’s findings did so, and eloquently.

“In 1986, the Jonah Natural Gas Field in Wyoming was a world-renowned wildlife corridor. Now, just over twenty years later, it has about 40% of the animals it used to,” said Arrindell, showing a slide of a landscape so dotted with drilling platforms it resembled gopher holes. “This is not a benign activity. There is real impact; streams are drained, water is polluted, and property values are greatly diminished.”

A great deal of this pollution comes from NORMs (Normally Occurring Radioactive Materials, or volatile compounds which occur whenever the earth’s crust is breached), said Arrindell, but much more of it results from the unsafe practices engaged in by drillers.

“The EPA has published a list of fluids used in fracking (or fracturing the shale in which natural gas is suspended),” said Arrindell, “and it’s much more than water and sand. Chemicals used include benzene, ammonium chloride, and a powerful endocrine disruptor called 2-butoxyethanol. These can lead to mutations in reproductive systems, and the hydrogen sulfide released by bleeding raw gas impurities effects memory, the central nervous system, and even death.”

These claims were echoed in the findings of the National Resource Defense Council, which presented findings to Congress in October 2007 confirming the release of hydrogen sulfide, mercury, benzene, and radium around Rocky Mountain drilling sites. For more information, visit nrdc.org.

Much of Arrindell’s science found its real-life analogue in Samajopoulos’ interviews. One woman spoke of being made sick from her well water, and only regaining her health after switching to bottled water. A man who owned a trout pond described waking up one morning with all his trout dead and the weeds around his pond turning brown. A farmer pressed on muddy soil near a runoff stream, so the camera could capture the slick of oil and pollutants being released from his earth. All the interview subjects mentioned how much their property values had fallen.

“You can lose your homeowner’s insurance,” said Carullo. “In Hickory, sellers are walking away with 15% of their property value. Municipalities might have to raise taxes to carry public official liability insurance.”

“We can’t be a penny wise and a pound foolish,” said Judah Catalan, a speaker at the event. “The main issue here is health. Whatever an individual may feel about drilling, it must be conducted in a way so we’re healthy.”

To that end, the Damascus Citizens for Sustainability are raising funds to retain the services of public health advocate Richard Lippes of Buffalo, N.Y. Lippes, who represented the homeowners in the famous Love Canal case, will use his expertise to ensure that permitting on the already-signed leases will only happen after residents’ safety is assured.

“We aren’t inventing the wheel; much of this has been argued successfully before,” said Lippes. “There’s no doubt that drilling harms the environment. We’re going to look at the permits on a case-by-case basis, and try first to come to an agreement with the permit-granting bodies to only go forward if all environmental regulations are met, and if they’re not, to not grant the drilling permit at all. I believe the government agencies have the public’s best interest in mind. If we can’t come to an agreement, then we might consider legal action, but at this point it’s still too early to tell.”

So far, the DCS has raised over $20,000, which they have used for public awareness projects. For more information, to make a donation, or to receive a CD of testimonials from citizens in Washington County, please visit the group’s website at www.damascuscitizens.org.