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Alexa Brunet - Photographe - Marseille
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News from Gazhistan

"Today in Gazhistan, drinking water is scarce, wild animals are disappearing, the air is becoming hard to breathe, illnesses are gnawing away at us, polluted soils no longer feed us, we are evicted, it’s time to leave, but where for?” How can something that hasn’t happened yet be photographed? This is the formidable problem that the irruption on the public market place of the gas and shale oil question poses on the land we live on. An option would be to document the citizens’ opposition movement to this new industrial adventure and draw up a portrait of those taking part in the demonstrations and public meetings. Banners, processions, speeches are certainly all fascinating but don’t show the potential dangers that threaten us in the event that France follows the United States’ example with its 500,000 drill holes. The option chosen was to take staged photographs that can be seen as fiction at first glance, but in which one can sense that reality is not far behind the surface. From this point of view, the already famous images from Josh Fox’s film “Gasland”, where water is seen catching fire straight from the tap, sweep aside any doubts about this approach : reality is effectively overtaking fiction. This photographic work lies somewhere in between where everything is possible."

Patrick Herman

April 2011 : the French government commits itself to passing a law forbidding the exploitation of shale oil. June 2011 : the technique of hydraulic fracturing is to be allowed "for scientific purposes". All is well...

A picnic with gas masks, La Souche, Ardeche, France. "[ In the United States ] most of the problems we are warned about are associated with volatile hyrdocarbons that are breathed in. Water due to be used in fracturing is stored in open air ponds. It is full of heavy metals, made up of organic and radioactive compounds etc. We are trying to understand how these organic components can also pollute the air". (Dan Volz for the Center for Healthy Environment and Communities at Pittsburg University, 10th September 2010).

According to 'USA Today', as much as 1mg per liter of methane can be found in water near drill holes. On the 5th May 2004, an explosion in Pennsylvania destroyed a house and killed 3 people : a tap was turned on near a flame.

In Louisiana, 19 cows that came into contact with fracturation fluids from Chesapeake Energy died. An anti-corrosion fluid is suspected which is carcinogenic for the mouth and tongue. (Shreveport Times, 29th April 2010).

The Angelus, agriculture's twilight, Larzac plateau. Over-exploitation of water resources, air and water table pollution, eviction, breaking up of agricultural concerns... a requiem for agriculture.

Exploiting gas in a well can necessitate 10 hydraulic fracturing jobs. The volume of water used can vary from between 12 and 20,000 cubic meters, ie 12 to 20 million liters of water. (National Institute for Public Health, Quebec, November 2010).

Eviction by gas companies, Grospierres, Ardeche, France.

In areas where gas is extracted, tiny particles, mainly due to the combustion of diesel fuels, increase significantly. They lead to various cardiac illnesses and respiratory problems such as asthma, bronchitis and emphysema.

Ozone is a polluant that is often detected near exploitation sites. A precursor to smog, it is an irritant to the lungs. "Several villages surrounding these installations have more smog than large city centres". (Marc-André Legault, Ecole Polytechnique, The stakes of shale gas in Quebec, 17th September 2010).

The carrot : "You will have jobs, roundabouts, swimming pools, communal halls..." and, if that doesn't work, the stick : Schuepbach Energy has attacked, in the Administrative Tribunal, the bylaws from several towns that forbid the exploration and exploitation of shale gas and oil on their land.

Massive exodus, Grospierres, Ardeche, France.

The Environmental Protection Agency has listed organic components found in fluid from fracturing near the drill hole. Among them : benzene, a carcinogenic neurotoxin. In a report published in 2010, the EPA noted that in Pennsylvania certain aqueous residues from extraction sites contained 20 times the legal limit of benzene. It spilled out into rivers.

© Alexa Brunet 2021 - Création du site internet flo-che.fr