State Chamber responds to naturalgas film

RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — Last week after screenings of GASLAND - a movie exploring the natural-gas industry nationwide - in Clinton, Fayetteville and Little Rock, the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce circulated a letter to the editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. But before sending it to the paper, the state Chamber circulated the letter to local chambers of commerce, encouraging the local chamber officials to sign the letter as a show of support.

President of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce Randy Zook said the chamber wrote the letter in order to give the gas companies a “fair shake,” because many of the cases of health problems and water damage in the film are undocumented by the gas companies and other agencies.

“We think the film was sensational and that it did not present a fact-based view of shale fracking and the results it has achieved,” Zook said.

The letter, written by Zook, states, “As representatives of thousands of businesses across our state, we find it ironic that during these challenging times, Arkansas has received a visit from a New York City filmmaker who is airing a ‘shockumentary’ and has publicly stated that he wishes to shut down the natural-gas industry in shale production regions across our country.”

Filmmaker Josh Fox begins his documentary at his home in rural Pennsylvania, where a major gas company made a request to extract gas.

Before giving consent to the company, Fox decided to investigate and filmed a trip west to talk to people in communities like Dish, Texas, where hydraulic fracturing has been going on for years.

Zook states in his letter that Arkansas is now the seventh-largest producer of marketed natural gas in the United States.

“There is no question that since the shale drilling practices began in Texas several years ago, the industry’s process is much improved,” Zook said. “We think that activity is in large measure responsible that Arkansas’ economy has not suffered as dramatically as the rest of the country’s economy.”

“With this growth has come enormous economic benefits, including billions of dollars in investments, 30,000 jobs, average annual incomes of almost $60,000, immense growth in sales, income, severance andproperty taxes, and millions of dollars in royalty income to our residents,” Zook wrote.

Mark Raines, director of communications for Chesapeake Energy’s Little Rock office, was asked by the state chamber to make calls to the local chambers to help gain support for the letter, and heagreed to help.

Raines said he has seen the film but declined to comment on his opinion of it.

Melisa Gardner of the Heber Springs Chamber of Commerce received a call from Raines and was happy to cooperate.

“They do a lot for our community,” Gardner said of Chesapeake. “I don’t think it was a radical letter. It was just kind of downplaying the shockumentary value of it. No matter what you think of the gas companies, they have done a lot of good for our area.”

Greenbrier Chamber of Commerce Director Amie Regester agreed and also signed the letter.

“We have to remember all the good the gascompanies do for the community,” she said.

At least one community-activist group is hard at work to increase awareness about the negative aspects of the process of hydraulic fracturing on the environment of the state. Zook admitted in the letter that the process has its problems.

“Is this development perfect?” he wrote. “No, but tremendous progress has been made, and new greener technologies are being pursued and developed every day. The filmmaker’s ideals of utilizing wholly renewable energy sources are admirable and may be attainable in the next 50 years.”

Zook went on to ask the media to ignore the filmmaker’s rhetoric.

“Let’s continue building a business climate in Arkansas that has the best interests of all Arkansans in mind,” he wrote.

- czilk@ arkansasonline.com

River Valley Ozark, Pages 63 on 08/26/2010

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