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Water Resources and Management
Directed by Christopher Beaver
Las Vegas provides an example to the world of how any city can and must create its own sustainable water solutions.
Las Vegas is perhaps the most famous resort city in the world. It is also the thirstiest city in the driest state in the US, so it has had to be proactive in developing solutions that conserve and redistribute water, their most precious resource. Currently the city is faced with only 2.6 inches of rain per annum, a seventeen-year drought, a constantly expanding population and competition for shared resources. As a result, the city has been forced to create its own sustainable water solutions and in the process has turned itself into an example for other desert regions.
Everything to do with their water supply and disposal is watched, measured and checked. Water is recycled and returned to the source. Every drop is monitored acoustically to detect possible leaks within 6500 miles of pipes. 40% of the water is recycled for indoor use and returned to Lake Mead, 40% of what goes out comes back, but the remaining 60% is for outdoor use and either evaporates or goes back into the ground.
The film follows the story of Patricia Mulroy, the controversial founder of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Her strength and leadership "helped launch a quiet revolution that will shape Colorado River politics far into the future, and perhaps provide a path to safety in the face of intensifying water scarcity."
The story of Las Vegas's approach to water sustainability is full of surprises, and we hear it from many different perspectives. After all, the strip is just a small part of the valley, but it is the engine that provides the cash to enable the experimentation that has created these models for survival.
DVD / 2019 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 55 minutes
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Directed by Josh Fox, James Spione, Myron Dewey
Record of the massive peaceful resistance led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to the Dakota Access Pipeline through their land and underneath the Missouri River.
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a controversial project that brings fracked crude oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and eventually to Illinois. The Standing Rock Tribe and people all over the world oppose the project because the pipeline runs under the Missouri river, a source of drinking water for over 18 million people, and pipeline leaks are commonplace. Since 2010 over 3,300 oil spills and leaks have been reported.
Moving from summer 2016, when demonstrations over the Dakota Access Pipeline's demolishing of sacred Native burial grounds began, to the current and disheartening pipeline status, AWAKE, A Dream from Standing Rock is a powerful visual poem in three parts that uncovers complex hidden truths with simplicity. The film is a collaboration between indigenous filmmakers: Director Myron Dewey and Executive Producer Doug Good Feather; and environmental Oscar-nominated filmmakers Josh Fox and James Spione.
The Water Protectors at Standing Rock captured world attention through their peaceful resistance. The film documents the story of Native-led defiance that has forever changed the fight for clean water, our environment and the future of our planet. It asks: "Are you ready to join the fight?"
DVD / 2017 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 89 minutes
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Directed by Joshua Pribanic, Melissa Troutman
Exposes the mishandling and cover-up of drinking water contamination related to unconventional natural gas extraction - aka fracking - in Pennsylvania.
This award-winning "bombshell" documentary covers the impact of fracking in one of the country's most pristine watersheds. With exclusive interviews from oil and gas industry leaders, independent experts and impacted residents, TRIPLE DIVIDE [REDACTED] covers five years (2011 - 2016) of cradle-to-grave investigations that reveal how regulators and industry keep water contamination covered up.
The documentary's title pays homage to one of only four Triple Continental Divides in North America, a place that provides drinking water to millions of Americans, signaling to the audience that everything, and everyone, is downstream from shale gas extraction.
Award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo co-narrates this film.
DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 53 minutes
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Directed by Ian Cheney
Contrasts sci-fi ideas about terraforming Mars with the state of NYC's waterways, and questions the viability of colonizing Mars before making our own planet sustainable.
Could humans live on Mars? Would we want to? Emmy-nominated filmmaker, Ian Cheney, provides insight into our currently unsustainable relationship with our home planet by examining the sci-fi speculation of "terraforming," or making another planet Earth-like, by altering its atmosphere. He calls on a multifaceted brain trust to process this big idea including a desert camp of Mars hopefuls, a bevy of sci-fi writers, Hurricane Sandy survivors, the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, and a who's who of astrobiologists and earth scientists. BLUESPACE makes a strong case for taking better care of our water-rich planet so that future generations won't have to resort to interplanetary colonization.
At times whimsical and funny, serious and poignant and always stimulating, this is a unique exploration of current thinking about the origins and evolution of life and its relationship to water.
DVD / 2016 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 73 minutes
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Directed by Jon Bowermaster
The oil and gas industry has historically dominated Louisiana politics and is largely responsible for the state's rapidly disappearing coastline.
Ten years ago Hurricane Katrina devastated the coast of Louisiana. Five years later the Deepwater Horizon exploded and spilled more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the worst ecologic disaster in North American history. Amazingly those aren't the worst things facing Louisiana's coastline today. It is that the state is fast disappearing through coastal erosion caused largely by oil and gas industry activity.
A follow-up to our 2010 film SoLa: Louisiana Water Stories, this film introduces us to some of the spill's most aggrieved victims as well as those who are desperately trying to save its coastline. Writer and historian John Barry who launched a suit against 97 oil and gas companies attempting to get them to pay their fair share for reparations caused by their explorations. Consultant and native son James Carville who manages to find some hope in new technologies that may save the coast. And Lt. Gen. Russell Honore, the man who saved New Orleans post-Katrina, whose new passion is for a Green Army he has recruited.
Fishermen, scientists, politicians, environmentalists, and oil-rig workers document how the coast of Louisiana has changed. What really happened to all that oil? What about the dispersant used to push it beneath the surface? How has the spill impacted local economies as well as human health and the health of both marine life and the Gulf itself? How much resilience is left in the people and coastline?
DVD / 2015 / (Grades 7-12, Colleges, Adults) / 62 minutes
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Directed by Kris Kaczor
A fiery octogenarian activist spearheads a grassroots campaign to ban the sale of single-serve plastic bottled water in Concord, MA.
Jean Hill, a fiery octogenarian, is deeply concerned about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the world's largest landfill. Since 2010, she has spearheaded a grassroots campaign to ban the sale of single-serve plastic bottled water in her hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. She spends her golden years attending city council meetings and cold calling residents. So far, her attempts to pass a municipal bylaw have failed.
As she prepares for one last town meeting, Jean faces the strongest opposition yet, from local merchants and the International Bottled Water Association. But her fiercest challenge comes from Adriana Cohen, mother, model and celebrity publicist-turned-pundit, who insists the bill is an attack on freedom.
When Adriana thrusts Jean's crusade into the national spotlight, it's silver-haired senior versus silver-tongued pro. In the same town that incited the American Revolution and inspired Thoreau's environmental movement, can one senior citizen make history? A tense nail-biter of a vote will decide.
DVD / 2014 / (Grades 5-12, College, Adult) / 142 minutes
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Directed by Renard Cohen
Documents the opposition from both sides of the political spectrum to the ubiquitous practice of fracking for natural gas, and the health and environmental reasons behind it.
GROUNDSWELL RISING gives voice to ordinary folks engaged in a David and Goliath struggle against Big Oil and Gas. We meet parents, scientists, doctors, farmers and individuals across the political spectrum decrying the energy extraction process known as fracking that puts profits over people. This provocative documentary tracks a grassroots movement exposing dangers to clean air, water, and civil rights.
GROUNDSWELL RISING shows how fracking has contaminated drinking water and jeopardized health and quality of life. Homeowners near wells suffer from respiratory ailments and property devaluation. Reina Ripple, of Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, chronicles mounting ailments related to fracking. A former industry employee shows skin lesions and edema obtained while working with fracking waste.
Grassroots efforts have achieved bans, moratoriums, and referendums on fracking. Stanford University Professor Mark Jacobson paves the way forward globally with his Solutions Project for 100% renewable energy. Transcending the genre of environmental film, GROUNDSWELL's passionate stories inspire and empower.
DVD / 2014 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 70 minutes
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Directed by Pete McBride
Breathtaking photography tells the story of the Colorado River, which flowed to the sea for 6 million years and now dries up 90 miles short of the Sea of Cortez.
After spending a decade working abroad as a photojournalist, Colorado native Pete McBride, decided to focus on something closer to his home and his heart: the Colorado River which cuts through his backyard. Taking nearly three years, McBride followed the river source to sea on a personal journey to see exactly where the river goes and what becomes of the irrigation water that flows across his family's cattle ranch in central Colorado after it returns to the creek.
Recruiting his father, John, as his personal pilot McBride chose an aerial vantage to capture a unique and fresh view of the Colorado River Basin. He also partnered with Jon Waterman, an author who stayed stream level to paddle the entire length of the river.
This short film takes the viewer on a 1,500 mile adventure downstream, from mountains and cities and through canyons and across shrinking reservoirs. For 6 million years the Colorado River flowed to the sea. Today it runs dry some 90 miles shy of its historic terminus at the Sea of Cortez.
This visual journey is both revealing and alarming as it highlights the state of the river and the Southwest's drying future.
Featuring the photography of Pete McBride and music by Explosions In The Sky, This Will Destroy You, Jesse Cook, and Ludovico Einaudi.
DVD / 2011 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 18 minutes
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Directed by Rachel Libert, Tony Hardmon
Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger reveals the Marine Corps' cover-up at Camp Lejeune of one of the largest water contamination incidents in US history.
Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger was a devoted Marine for nearly twenty-five years. As a drill instructor he lived and breathed the "Corps" and was responsible for indoctrinating thousands of new recruits with its motto Semper Fidelis or "Always Faithful."
When Jerry's nine-year old daughter Janey died of a rare type of leukemia, his world collapsed. As a grief-stricken father, he struggled for years to make sense of what happened. His search for answers led to the shocking discovery of a Marine Corps cover-up of one of the largest water contamination incidents in U.S. history.
Semper Fi: Always Faithful follows Jerry's mission to expose the Marine Corps and force them to live up to their motto to the thousands of soldiers and their families exposed to toxic chemicals. His fight reveals a grave injustice at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune and a looming environmental crisis at military sites across the country.
DVD / 2011 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 76 minutes
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Investigates how the exploitation of Southern Louisiana's abundant natural resources compromised the resiliency of its ecology and culture, multiplying the devastating impact of the BP oil spill and Hurricane Katrina.
Everywhere you look in Southern Louisiana there's water: rivers, bayous, swamps, the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico. And everyone in Cajun Country has a water story, or two or three or more. Its waterways support the biggest economies in Louisiana - a $70 billion a year oil and gas industry, a $2.4 billion a year fishing business, tourism and recreational sports.
They are also home to some insidious polluters: the same oil and gas industry, 200 petrochemical plants along a 100-mile-long stretch of the Mississippi known "Cancer Alley," the world's largest Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico and erosion that is costing the coastline twenty five square miles of wetlands a year. At the same time, SoLa is home to one of America's most vital and unique cultures; if everyone who lives there has a water story they can also most likely play the fiddle, waltz, cook an etoufee and hunt and fish.
DVD / 2010 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 62 minutes
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An intimate portrait of international water activist Maude Barlow and the debate over whether water is a commercial good or a human right.
WATER ON THE TABLE features Maude Barlow, who is considered an "international water-warrior" for her crusade to have water declared a human right. "Water must be declared a public trust and a human right that belongs to the people, the ecosystem and the future, and preserved for all time and practice in law. Clean water must be delivered as a public service, not a profitable commodity."
The film intimately captures the public face of Maude Barlow as well as the unscripted woman behind the scenes. The camera shadows her life on the road in Canada -- including an eye-opening visit to Alberta's tar sands -- and the United States over the course of a year as she serves as the UN Senior Advisor on Water to Fr. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, President of the 63rd Session of the United Nations.
More than a portrait of an activist, WATER ON THE TABLE presents several dramatic opposing arguments. Barlow's critics are policy and economic experts who argue water is no different than any other resource, and that the best way to protect freshwater is to privatize it. It is proposed that Canada bulk-export its water to the United States in the face of an imminent water crisis.
DVD / 2010 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 79 minutes
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Directed by Stephanie Soechtig
An unflinching examination of the big business of bottled water.
Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce? From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car? And I.O.U.S.A., this timely documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of the bottled water industry -- an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water.
From the plastic production to the ocean in which so many of these bottles end up, this inspiring documentary trails the path of the bottled water industry and the communities which were the unwitting chips on the table. A powerful portrait of the lives affected by the bottled water industry, this revelatory film features those caught at the intersection of big business and the public's right to water.
DVD / 2009 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 75 minutes
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Directed by Kevin McMahon
An epic cinematic poem that reveals the extraordinary beauty and complex toxicity of the Great Lakes, the largest remaining supply of fresh water (20%) on Earth.
The film tells the epic story of the Great Lakes by following the cascade of its water from northern Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean, through the lives of some of the 35 million people who rely on the lake for survival.
Providing earth with 20% of its surface fresh water and its third largest industrial economy, the Great Lakes are a unique and precious resource under assault by toxins, sewage, invasive species, evaporating water and profound apathy. They are also one of the planet's great preserves of extraordinary wilderness beauty and a bounty of unique species.
WATERLIFE blends these realities with a dreamlike fluidity as it pours through the lives of some amazing characters. We meet an Anishinabe medicine woman who walked 16,000 miles around the lakes to sympathize with them; the last of the great Michigan fishing families; a man whose lakefront home now borders a field thanks to sewer overflows; the people of a village where mysterious toxins ensure that most new babies are girls; and the residents of Love Canal, a notorious Niagara Falls neighborhood abandoned in the 1970s and now dubiously refurbished.
Along the way, WATERLIFE show viewers the Great Lakes as they might appear to a seagull, a fish or a water molecule...and from a myriad of other amazing perspectives. Filmed over a full year with a battery of specialty cameras and techniques, WATERLIFE provides an unprecedented view of an incredible ecosystem rarely seen by the city dwellers who form most of its population. From the ornate fountains of Chicago to the sewers of Windsor, viewers are carried through marsh and pipe, across pounding waves and through thunder clouds on a journey which, as the film says, has no "ending or beginning, that shapes every body it passes through and unites them all across space and time."
WATERLIFE's director, Kevin McMahon, is one of Canada's most innovative documentary filmmakers. Gord Downie, leader of The Tragically Hip and a Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, narrates the film. Topping off this epic cinematic poem is a fabulous soundtrack featuring Sam Roberts, The Allman Brothers, Dropkick Murphys, Sufjan Stevens, Sigur R?, Robbie Robertson, Daniel Lanois, Phillip Glass, Brian Eno and a new song by The Tragically Hip. Plus check out the award-winning interactive website.
DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2009 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 109 minutes
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Directed by Lawrence R. Hott and Diane Garey
The story of the death and rebirth of one of America's most emblematic waterways.
For centuries, the Cuyahoga River has been on the frontier. When the United States was a new nation, the river literally marked the western frontier. But "civilization" came to the river; by 1870 the river was on the industrial frontier. On the river's banks sprouted a multitude of factories, a booming display of what was called progress. The river, as it flowed through Cleveland, became a foul-smelling channel of sludge, with an oily surface that ignited with such regularity that river fires were treated as commonplace events by the local press.
But then, in 1969, the river burned again, just as a third kind of frontier swept across the nation: an environmental frontier. And the Cuyahoga River became a landmark on this frontier too -- a poster child for those trying to undo the destruction wrought by progress in America.
The Return of the Cuyahoga is a one-hour documentary about the death and rebirth of one of America's most emblematic waterways. In its history we see the end of the American frontier, the growth of industry, the scourge of pollution and the advent of a political movement that sought to end pollution.
The Cuyahoga's story is a particularly apt example for future environmental efforts, because the once burning river can't just be cleaned up and "set aside" as a pristine wilderness park - it runs right through Cleveland, and like most American rivers, the Cuyahoga has to serve widely varying needs - aesthetic and economic, practical and natural, human and animal. The challenge: how to maintain industrial uses of the river near Lake Erie, encourage recreation and entertainment, and yet preserve the nature in and around the river. It's the same challenge that much of our riparian nation is facing today.
DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2008 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 57 minutes
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Directed by Amy Hart
An inspiring story from Malawi shows that clean water is essential for the achievement of the UN's Millennium Development Goals.
Through the inspiring story of Charles Banda, a humble Malawian fireman turned waterman, we see how water is a solution to many of the problems in his impoverished, sub- Saharan country. From hunger and poverty to women's equality and population control, HIV/AIDS to environmental sustainability, Banda makes it clear that the best way to assist and empower people in developing nations, and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), is by putting water first.
Water First draws a clear correlation between clean water and all of the other Millennium Development Goals. The goals are a set of 8 targets set by the UN in the year 2000 and endorsed by 187 nations. Sadly, at the halfway mark, we are less than halfway there. Charles Banda believes that if more people knew about the MDGs we would have a much better chance of achieving them. And, if clean water was the top priority, achieving the goals would be much more feasible. "30% of the goals would automatically be achieved if everyone had clean water," says John Oldfield of Water Advocates.
DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2008 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 46 minutes
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Directed by Liz Miller
The story of Highland Park, Michigan, and the larger issues of water privatization and human rights.
What if you lived by the largest body of fresh water in the world but could no longer afford to use it?
With a shrinking population, the post-industrial city of Highland Park, Michigan is on the verge of financial collapse. The state of Michigan has appointed an Emergency Financial Manager who sees the water plant as key to economic recovery. She has raised water rates and has implemented severe measures to collect on bills. As a result, Highland Park residents have received water bills as high as $10,000, they have had their water turned off, their homes foreclosed, and are struggling to keep water, a basic human right, from becoming privatized.
The Water Front is the story of an American city in crisis but it is not just about water. The story touches on the very essence of our democratic system and is an unnerving indication of what is in store for residents around the world facing their own water struggles. The film raises questions such as: Who determines the future of shared public resources? What are alternatives to water privatization? How will we maintain our public water systems and who can we hold accountable?
DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2007 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 53 minutes
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Directed by Tom Weidlinger
The story of the Hudson, and the battle to save it, are told as Chris Swain swims the entire length of the river.
Christopher Swain braved whitewater, sewage, snapping turtles, hydroelectric dams, homeland security patrols, factory outfalls, and PCB contamination to become the first person to swim the entire length of the Hudson River from the Adirondack Mountains to New York City.
Swain's experience links together stories of the river, which begins in wilderness and ends in one of the nation's densest population centers. We meet heroes who are fighting to protect the Hudson against a range of threats from industry, inept regulatory agencies, and public indifference. We also see how ordinary citizens can and do make a difference through choices they make effecting the environment, and by joining together around a common cause.
DVD (Color, With 58 Pages Teacher's Guide) / 2006 / (Grades 6-12, College, Adult) / 56 minutes
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Shows that global warming is already hurting the Pacific Islands.
" We are like the warning system for the whole world to see." Penehuro Lefale, Samoa
For 7 million people living on thousands of islands scattered across the Pacific ocean, global warming is not something that looms in the distant future: it's a threat whose first effects may have already begun.
Through personal stories of Pacific Islanders, RISING WATERS: Global Warming and the Fate of the Pacific Islands puts a human face on the international climate change debate.
The majority of scientists around the world now agree that global warming is real, and key studies show that the tropical Pacific islands will be hit first and hardest by its effects. The water temperature in the tropical Pacific has risen dramatically over the last two decades, bleaching coral and stressing marine ecosystems. Sea level rise threatens to inundate islands, and extreme weather events -- such as more frequent and intense El Ninos, severe droughts, and mega hurricanes -- could wipe out ecosystems and the way of life that has existed for thousands of years.
"Way before most of these islands go under, they're going to lose their fresh water supply." Anginette Heffernan, Fiji
In the program, islanders show the viewers the physical and cultural impacts caused by global warming. Unusual high tides have swept the low-lying atolls of Micronesia, destroying crops and polluting fresh water supplies. Ancestral graveyards are being destroyed by the impacts of rogue waves and erosion never witnessed before the last decade. An increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes is making it difficult for island communities and ecosystems to recover.
"It's very difficult for someone living in the United States to grasp the fact that if the sea level rises just a few feet, a whole nation will disappear." Ben Graham, Republic of the Marshall Islands
But the islanders' stories have not convinced everyone in the rest of the world. Some scientists refute the studies, and business leaders and economists warn that forcing industries to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions will cause a global economic collapse.
While the policy makers and scientists argue about when and how much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next twenty years, many Pacific Islanders are wondering if they will have a future. One thing is known: the longer emission reductions are delayed, the harder it will be to curb the effects of global warming, and prevent sea level rise from devastating the Pacific Islands.
What, then, should the islanders do? Whom should they believe? Where would they go if forced to leave their homes? RISING WATERS explores what it means to live under a cloud of scientific uncertainty, examining both human experience and expert scientific evidence. The problems facing the islanders serve as an urgent warning to the rest of the world.
Locations include Kiribati, the Samoas, Hawai'I, the atolls of Micronesia including the Marshall Islands, as well as laboratories and research centers in the continental United States. RISING WATERS weaves the portraits of the islanders with historical film and video materials, interviews with top scientists, and voiceover. 3D animation is used to illustrate key scientific concepts.
DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2000 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 57 minutes
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The battle over water rights on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.
WIND RIVER is a modern-day story of cowboys and Indians. White ranchers on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming are fighting to protect their long-held water rights for irrigated agriculture. The Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes are fighting to save the de-watered Wind River and a part of their own heritage.
This is a classic example of the changing face of the West, as environmentalists and Indian activists use the courts in an attempt to curtail some of the traditional, but harmful, practices of white ranchers and farmers.
DVD (Color) / 2000 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 33 minutes
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An illustration of the water cycle in a cautionary tale about pollution.
This classic, wordless film from the "Look Again" series tells a story that appeals to all ages, and is used widely in environmental education courses around the country.
A boy makes a decision about how to dispose of a green glob he has concocted. What will happen if he dumps it into a stream? Where does water come from and where does it go? This film illustrates the water cycle and raises many questions about environmental responsibility and the consequences of our decisions.
DVD (Color) / 1989 / (Grades P-6, Adult) / 10 minutes
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