TRIPLE DIVIDE  is a new documentary film that lights the shadows about America’s quest for energy, where Paradise Found meets the visible hand of natural gas development.

Potter County, Pa. (focus of the film) is home to a geological phenomenon called the Triple Divide, one of five widely-recognized in the United States where water drains into three different basins. The headwaters of this Triple Divide are ecological sanctuaries for all things living deep in Appalachia, and provide drinking water for millions of people downstream.

The natural gas industry is tapping the Marcellus Shale in the north eastern U.S., beneath the landscape of Potter, and promising America a new dream of energy independence and economic prosperity. In the heart of the Pennsylvania Wilds, this modern-day Gold Rush is filling pockets.

Via personal stories, interviews and investigative reports we arrive at two roads of paradise: cheap energy to boost the economy, and a sacred path of life-sustaining resources.

Potter is positioned to set precedent for model legislation, via the Clean Streams Law, for how natural gas development will be regulated in the state’s most sensitive waterways.

This north central region of Pennsylvania is sacred for what its environment offers to those downstream of the Triple Divide, but some fear that outdated legislation from the Oil and Gas Act will allow for its inherent value to be sacrificed; or that it already has.

How Pennsylvania deals with sensitive areas such as these will affect many outside the state. The Genesee River, for example, starts at the Triple Divide in Potter County but provides sustainable tourism economy and drinking water for hundreds of thousands living along the river as it flows north through upstate New York to the city of Rochester, where it dumps into Lake Ontario.

Already families struggle to deal with the impacts, often afraid to discuss their situations for fear of the gas companies retaliating by ceasing delivery of fresh water, or worse, a lawsuit. Read “Drinking Dimock: A Glass Full of Gas Water.”

Others watch their land and 50-year old hardwoods being stripped away — taken over for drilling when they don’t own the mineral rights, still responsible for property taxes where they fear no one will ever want to buy. Read “Property Owner Loses Land to Gas Driller on ‘Split Estate’.“

The gas industry is supporting the state by funding studies and remedial work when an where pollution may occur. Read “Chesapeake Energy Helps Pennsylvania Afford Study of Natural Gas Blowout.” But not all studies are without a conflict of interest. Read “Chesapeake energy Misinformed Shareholders About Impact of Well Blowout.“

The industry pours tens of thousands into public relation campaigns every week to educate and promote this production as safe and beneficial.

Chesapeake Energy Ad circulating in local papers »

As the industry encroaches an uncertain future hangs in the balance.

Over 90% of this film has already been documented as part of our ongoing investigation into the Natural Gas Industry on the east coast of the United States, which includes: