Fracking is evil

In advance of the reading, exhibition, and panel on fracking, here's a video from Jacques del Conte about the effects of this extraction technology on regular citizens in Pennsylvania:

Tuesday, February 1, 2011 / 7-9pm
SEA Poetry Series No. 6 with Phil Metres and Michael Leong
and an artist response by Jacques del ConteThe SEA Poetry Series emphasizes diverse ways in which poets address social and environmental issues in their work. Presented in connection with specific SEA exhibitions, the series aims to investigate and expand the exhibition theme through the lens of contemporary poetry. After each reading, an artist from the exhibition or a community member working within the exhibition theme briefly responds to the poet. Past poets in the series have included Jonathan Skinner, Marcella Durand, Laura Elrick, The Canary Project, James Sherry and Julie Ezelle Patton.SEA Poetry Series conceived and organized by E.J. McAdams, poet and Associate Director of Philanthropy at The Nature Conservancy, New York City. $5. Cash bar. Q and A to follow.Michael Leong is the author of two books of poetry: e.s.p. (Silenced Press, 2009) and Cutting Time with a Knife (Black Square Editions / The Brooklyn Rail, forthcoming). He's also written a translation of the Chilean poet Estela Lamat, I, the Worst of All (BlazeVOX [books], 2009), and several chapbooks and broadsides including The Great Archivist's / Cloudy Quotient (Beard of Bees Press, 2010), Midnight's Marsupium (The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2010), and The Lung of the Poet (Splitleaves Press, 2011). He lives in New York City and contributes to the literary blog Big Other.

Philip Metres is the author of To See the Earth (2008), Come Together: Imagine Peace (2008), Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (2007), Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein (translation, 2004), and A Kindred Orphanhood: Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (translation, 2003). He has also published two chapbooks, Instants (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2006) and Primer for Non-Native Speakers (Wick Poetry Series, 2004), and has three forthcoming in 2011: abu ghraib arias, Ode to Oil, and Thirty-Five New Pages. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, and Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry and has garnered an NEA, a Watson Fellowship, two Ohio Arts Council Grants, and the Cleveland Arts Prize in 2010. He teaches literature and creative writing at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. For more information on his poetry, click here. Jacques del Conte is a regular contributor of photography and video for Vanity Fair Magazine, VanityFair.com and Vogue.it. He has also been published in Nylon, Useless, Movies Rock, Giant, WhiteWall, V Man, Lucky, Vice, Out, and The Bardian as well as Tim Barber’s Tiny Vices and TV Books. In June 2010, he created a documentary video and contributed a series of photographs to a Vanity Fair article called "A Colossal Fracking Mess." For more information, click here.

ABOUT FRACKING
Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is a means of gas extraction that accesses gas trapped more than a mile below the earth’s surface. When a well is fracked, small earthquakes are produced by the pressurized injection of millions of gallons of fresh water combined with sand and chemicals, releasing the gas, as well as toxic chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive materials that contaminate air and water.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed under the guidance of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, exempts fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act and major provisions of other protective laws, virtually eliminating the gas industry’s liability and E.P.A.’s regulatory oversight. Exemption from the Community Right to Know Law also absolves the gas industry from being required to report the actual chemicals used in the drilling processes—chemicals that can severely contaminate the water supply and cause serious illnesses. A drilling moratorium is in effect in New York State until the D.E.C. issues fracking regulation, potentially paving the way for drilling to commence in New York in 2011.http://www.DamascusCitizens.org

Educating about gas drilling issues and seeking solutions including legal, regulatory and government reforms

http://www.NYH2O.org

The NYC sister group to Damascus Citizens
http://www.riverkeeper.org/

Advocate of clean water in New York State and New York City
http://dontfrackwithny.com/

Affiliated with Riverkeeper
http://delawareriverkeeper.org

A 22-year-old environmental advocacy, stream restoration and education organization that operates throughout the Delaware River Watershed
http://www.un-naturalgas.org

Active in NY State; focused in Chenango, Delaware and Otsego counties
http://www.fractracker.org

Centralized source tracking and visualizing data related to gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region
http://shaleshock.org/

Active in the Upstate NY and Finger Lakes region
http://www.earthworksaction.org

A national organization for the education, organization and protection of communities from the devastating impacts of oil and gas development

http://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/

Active in the Catskills region

http://gaslandthemovie.com

About the movie and about getting involved in the issues

ABOUT SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics)SEA is a unique endeavor that presents a diverse multimedia exhibition program and permanent archive of artworks that address social and environmental concerns. SEA assembles artists, activists, scientists and scholars to address environmental issues through presentations of visual art, performances, panels and lecture series that will communicate international activities concerning environmental and social activism. Central to SEA’s mission is to provide a vehicle through which the public can be made aware of socially- and environmentally-engaged work, and to provide a forum for collaboration between artists, scientists, activists, scholars and the public. SEA functions as an initiative where individuals can join together in dialogue about issues that affect our daily lives. SEA was conceived by Exit Art Artistic Director Papo Colo.EXHIBITION SUPPORTGeneral exhibition support provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Bloomberg LP; Jerome Foundation; Lambent Foundation; Pollock-Krasner Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn; and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. We are grateful to Damascus Citizens for Sustainability and Delaware RiverKeeper for their help and expertise in the complex issues of fracking.