FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Joshua Pribanic, Co-director
[email protected]
TripleDivideFilm.org/redacted
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tripledivideredacted
419-202-8503
Accolade Global Film Competition has awarded a new film out of Pennsylvania, TRIPLE DIVIDE [REDACTED], with a Humanitarian Award. According to Accolade, “The goal of the Humanitarian Award is to honor filmmakers who are bringing awareness to issues of ecological, political, social and spiritual importance. The winners are hand-picked by the judges and staff from hundreds of entries throughout the year."
TRIPLE DIVIDE [REDACTED] calls for a criminal investigation of Pennsylvania’s environmental regulators and begins with testimony by co-director Melissa Troutman.
"For years, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has suppressed, withheld and covered up hundreds of water contamination cases [related to fracking] in Pennsylvania, cases that specific officials at DEP have knowingly kept hidden," says Troutman, who also heads up the investigative news nonprofit Public Herald.
Award-winning Actor Mark Ruffalo co-narrates the film and has joined the call for a criminal investigation, “For too long the health and safety of families near fracking has been side-lined. TRIPLE DIVIDE [REDACTED] contains the evidence for Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro to act and stop the state from inflicting this harm on innocent victims.”
In 2015, Pennsylvania became the second-largest producing natural gas state in the U.S. behind Texas, and DEP’s job is to protect the state from pollution from fracking — the process used to remove natural gas from miles underground. The film is named after one of four "divides" in North America where water flows from one place into rivers that flow to three different parts of the continent.
"From the Triple Divide in Potter County, everything is downstream," said co-director Joshua Pribanic. "As fracking has increased here, the number of contaminated water supplies is rising. Adding injury to insult, the state is entertaining an idea to ‘treat’ radioactive fracking wastewater and dump it back into one of three rivers born at the Triple Divide — making this film even more important."
Released by Bullfrog Films as a 52-minute updated version of the 2013 production, Triple Divide, the film covers five years (2011 — 2016) of cradle-to-grave investigations showing how government officials are mishandling drinking water complaints, leaving families unprotected. The film is available for community screenings at http://bullfrogcommunities.com/.
Resources:
TWEETS:
New documentary “Triple Divide [Redacted]” hand selected from 100s of films, honored with Humanitarian Award from @AccoladeComp. Community screenings available through http://bullfrogcommunities.com/ @MarkRuffalo @PghFilmOffice @FilmSocietyNWPA @PhillyFilmSoc
New fracking documentary “Triple Divide [Redacted]” (honored with Humanitarian Award from @AccoladeComp) calls for criminal investigation of Pennsylvania state officials @JoshShaprioPA @GovernorTomWolf @NRDC @Earthworks @SierraClubPA @foodandwater @EnvDefenseFund @MarkRuffalo