With all of the outrage Crude engenders regarding what happened in Ecuador in the past, one of the things that rarely comes up when discussing the film is the lesson this story can teach us about the future. But George Santayana’s famous adage that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” could not be more apropos.
Many of us on the Crude filmmaking team are based in New York City, where the tap water is some of the cleanest in the country, and a debate is currently raging over drilling for natural gas that could threaten our drinking water.
Our friends at Riverkeeper oppose the drilling plan. Those who support the drilling maintain that with today’s technology, nothing bad could happen. While the plaintiffs in Ecuador charge that Texaco used practices that were outdated even in the 1960s when drilling there began, are we really so arrogant to think that there will be no errors that could contaminate our reservoirs? And is a resource as vital as clean drinking water really something that we are willing to gamble on?
When looking at the Ecuador story, it’s easy to believe that something like this could never happen here in the U.S. But unfortunately, similar stories are more common than we’d like to think. Communities across the country have been fighting the extractive industries for decades, attempting to hold big business accountable for putting profits ahead of the health and safety of our people and the environment. Just this week, a jury found Exxon Mobil liable for contaminating New York City’s groundwater with a gasoline additive and has awarded the city $105 million.
Crude seems more timely than ever.
-Michael Bonfiglio
Producer/2nd Unit Director
