"'Gasland,' a film that turns a harshly critical eye on the perils of natural gas drilling, has earned an Academy Award nomination for best documentary.

The Oscar nod guarantees even wider exposure for the controversial film, which uses images of flames leaping from kitchen faucets and polluted streams to make an argument for the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling technique where water and chemicals are injected at high pressure deep underground to free up previously inaccessible natural gas deposits.

The spread of fracking has vastly expanded the nation’s gas reserves and brought prosperity and jobs to some depressed areas, but environmental advocates featured in the film charge that it has done so at the cost of widespread damage to the environment and human health."

John Collins Rudolf reports for the New York Times' Green blog January 26, 2011. [2]