TO: Mr. Larry Persily, Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects

Dear Mr. Persily,

We The Concerned suspect that as the Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects (by the way, we think a really boss acronym for your bulky job title is "FANG"), you must follow energy news more closely than many of Alaska's legislators seemed to earlier this year. So we guess you're already aware of the so-called shale gas "boom."

Some people say the North American natural gas market is going to be flooded with natural gas, leaving little room for Alaska's gas. Others don't believe all the hype. Whatever the case, the new gas rush is almost entirely due to a new type of production technique, called "horizontal hydraulic fracturing," or "fracking," wherein huge amounts of industrial fluids are injected deep beneath the ground to crack rock and release hydrocarbons.

There have been concerns about what impacts fracking has on people, drinking water and geology for a little while now. The state of New York and the federal government are conducting separate studies on the human and environmental consequences of fracking, but so far, there's not a lot to go on. As a result, the conversation has been pretty tame. Recently, however, the debate shows signs of increasing ugliness.

The new acrimony started when the trailer for a new documentary film from HBO, "Gasland," directed by Josh Fox, was released last month. From what we can tell from the trailer and Fox's appearance on PBS's "NOW," he went around the country listening to what people had to say about fracking and state regulation of the practice. Most of it wasn't good. In fact, some of it was downright nasty.

People allege gas drilling operations have made their land and air hazardous, poisoned their water wells or caused them to explode, and -- well, basically put them in great danger. And many claim they weren't informed about the potential hazards before they signed fracking leases. Other people consider potential side effects to be a worthwhile trade-off for some small economic hope -- or at least a ticket out of their doomed towns. The Concerned think it's either really cruel or really lucky so much natural gas sits beneath such economically depressed areas of the country.

Speaking of depression, one particular scene in the "Gasland" trailer has caused quite a bit of controversy between environmental groups and the fracking industry. It shows a man in Colorado who is able to light his water faucet on fire because of all the gas coming out of it. The film presents it as if the gas were natural gas, but according to one expert, Colorado officials determined that the man's well is being ruined by "biogenic gas," which is different from the gas that frackers are after. He said that the film's implication is irresponsible, that there has yet to be a case of well contamination connected to fracking because the operations are conducted thousands of feet below the water table. Another expert responded that no one really understands the subsurface consequences of the technology, and that the industry itself admits gas migrates underground.