At a glance
Environmentalists who live “off the grid,” the Andrysicks came face-to-face with the perilous consequences of unbridled hydrofracking when their community successfully blocked gas industry plans to use an abandoned well in the Keuka Lake community of Pulteney as a dump for toxic wastewater from hydrofracking in Pennsylvania.
With farmer-activists and filmmakers Jeff and Jodi Andrysick
Alfred State College’s New Horizons Forum will feature the civic engagement work of Hammondsport farmer-activists turned filmmakers Jeff and Jodi Andrysick. On Saturday, April 30, at 1 p.m. in Room 215 of the Engineering Technology Building on the Alfred State campus, the Andrysicks’ "All Fracked Up,” a partially satirical documentary loaded with serious and straightforward scientific information, will be screened.
Environmentalists who live “off the grid,” the Andrysicks came face-to-face with the perilous consequences of unbridled hydrofracking when their community successfully blocked gas industry plans to use an abandoned well in the Keuka Lake community of Pulteney as a dump for toxic wastewater from hydrofracking in Pennsylvania. To combat the growing dangers posed by unregulated gas industry interests, the Andrysicks used their savings in an amateur filmmaking venture. The film features the expert testimony of Cornell Professor Anthony Ingraffea, one of the nation’s leading experts on hydraulic fracturing. Area victims of “fracking” as well as neighboring doctors, lawyers, teachers, and scientists add their own testimony.
This is the third and final Alfred State College event examining hydraulic fracturing. The natural gas deposits in the Marcellus Shale and the deeper Utica Shale underlie the areas where most Alfred State faculty, students, and families reside. Hydraulic fracturing is a local and national issue whose magnitude is difficult to imagine, but impossible to ignore. This “teachable moment” issue offers a rich opportunity for faculty, students, and area residents to become better informed of direct action being undertaken by residents in neighboring communities.
The April 30 showing will be followed by an open discussion with the Andrysicks on their growing involvement as citizen activists. A remake of their film will be the centerpiece of EPIC NO FRACK EVENT, a major event in the Northeast scheduled for Ithaca College on June 25. More information about the Andrysicks is available at (http://www.allfrackedup.com/).
The New Horizons Forum is sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences and offers programs which showcase scholarly, creative, and public service work currently engaged in by faculty, students, professional staff, and invited guests.