TTF Watershed » Film/TV/Video/Audio

Julie Slavet appears on Newsmakers!

Katie — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:06:24 +0000

Check out TTF’s Executive Director Julie Slavet on Newsmakers! In this video, Julie discusses some of the great work TTF is doing to help protect our watershed.

Messages In Motion Helps TTF and Partners Produce Videos

Katie — Mon, 23 May 2011 15:46:45 +0000

We just completed our four week workshop with Messages in Motion and residents of our Germantown/East Mt. Airy Model Neighborhood. Participants in the course made short videos about topics near and dear to their hearts.

Lesley and I made a short film about how dumping and pollution affect our waterways. We hope it’s just the start of environmental videos from TTF and our partners. Some notes about this film: it is meant to be provocative. We wanted to convey that everyone’s actions affect our waterways. Water departments around the country work really hard to clean the water so that it is drinkable but our actions make their work harder and more costly. If we didn’t have these hardworking folks working to clean our water, it would come out of our taps looking like it does at the end of our video. We all have a responsibility to keep our water clean. Also, for people who think that they can opt-out of this system by purchasing bottled water instead, please know that bottled water comes from our waterways as well! Also, bottled water isn’t as heavily regulated as municipal tap water.

No Dumping by Lesley and Katie:

Check out some of the other videos made by participants in this workshop below. Once all of the videos are completed, we’ll be hosting a screening, so stay tuned for more info!

Save Our Children by Carolyn:

Blindy Obey Liberty by Kenyatta:

Politics of Unemployment by Garret:

Thanks so much to everyone who participated and especially to Laura Deutch of Messages in Motion, who facilitated the program!

FREE Video Production Course for Germantown/East Mt. Airy Residents!

Ashley — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:36:03 +0000

TTF is partnering with Messages in Motion (MIM), an organization that offers people throughout Philadelphia the tools to create short video postcards that communicate personal and social messages about their diverse experiences and outlooks on life. TTF and MIM will be working together to give Germantown/East Mt. Airy residents the chance to communicate issues that are important to them through the use of video.

We will be offering a FREE four-week course to introduce video concepts and show you how to make and screen your own video! This is a great opportunity for our community! We would love to see teens and adults working together to understand the issues that affect the entire community. The course will start the week of April 18th and run through the week of May 9th. The course will consist of four 2-hour sessions held once a week. The days and times of the sessions will be determined based on availability of participants. For more information, email Lesley at lesley@ttfwatershed.org.

Christopher Swain Recognized in “Good Men” Project

Katie — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:47:04 +0000

Check out this awesome video with TTF partner and friend, Christopher Swain, who was recently recognized by Fox Boston’s “Good Men” Project. We’ve been partnering with Christopher on our Ethical Electronics Recycling Drives for years now and we can verify that he is most certainly a good man! He is also able to talk about serious water issues in a way that is both hilarious and inspiring. Watch the whole video below:

Good Men Project: MyFoxBOSTON.com

Erin Brockovich: The Movie

Abby — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:37:42 +0000

When I heard that the real Erin Brockovich was going to be speaking in Washington, D.C., my first response was “How do I get to Washington? I want to meet her!” The real Brockovich, although perhaps not Julia Roberts, must be a fireball. She’s a hero of mine who proves that you don’t necessarily need book smarts to make a difference in this world. I just wonder… since Brockovich’s law suit was in the late 80s… how far has environmental law come since then? I hear that corporations are more careful now, perhaps not about their waste treatment but about how they cover up their tracks. Unfortunately, I don’t think this one law suit is enough; we need to take this as an inspiration for many more. People shouldn’t be afraid of big corporations because if you have enough manpower (or in this case, womanpower) you can accomplish big things. What Pacific Gas & Electric did with their hexavalent chromium is inexcusable, but how many corporations are doing similar things without prosecution? How many other dangerous chemicals like this are being disposed of without the public’s knowledge or with given misinformation about similar chemicals? I can’t help but think of hydraulic fracking when I think of the hexavalent chromium issue here. PG&E told Hinkley residents about the chromium, which is better than any fracking company tells anyone. But they told them about the wrong chromium. Who’s to say that fracking companies will tell us the truth? Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. I just want them to start talking. Also: maybe someday they’ll make a movie about our friend Iris Marie Bloo and what she’s done against fracking. Maybe they’ll even get Julia Roberts! As for the real Erin Brockovich–I didn’t get to Washington. For now I’ll just settle for the movie.

Poisoned Waters

Abby — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:07:00 +0000

Poisoned Waters, like the bay it’s about, is far more expansive and contains much more depth than you see on the surface. Although the Chesapeake Bay and the Puget Sound look beautiful in the sunrise and sunset, they really are sick. These bodies of water stand as metaphors for every body of water in the United States and around the world, where first appearances are deceiving. Our current processes are not sustainable or healthy for our water environment — as you’ll see if you watch this program. A quote from it references the environmentalists of the 1970s, who said, “Down with the polluters!” and actively went about attacking what they thought was the root of the problem. It’s not the 70s anymore; today, we need to realize that everyone is part of the problem and that everyone has the potential to be part of the solution. We have to stop scrambling to put the blame on someone else and see that each of us can do something to change the way things have always been done. We need to stop being afraid of big responsibility and chunk it into digestible portions. There’s something empowering about knowing that you can make change. I’m of the belief that everything we do boils down to fear or love; inaction, of course, is driven by a fear of change and the unknown. But there’s so much promise in the future that instead of being afraid, we should funnel the love we have for the little things—like less traffic, more green space, sparkling-clean waters—into action. To learn more, go to the Poisoned Waters website. Watch the program online, join the discussion, find out more about the obstacles we’re facing, and find out how you can help. Enjoy!

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Tapped–Why No One Should Bother With Bottled Water

Abby — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 02:56:39 +0000

After watching Tapped, I’m really glad I’ve stopped buying bottled water. The very beginning introduced me to the term “water mining.” Mining typically has negative connotations—and mining water is no different. Surface water belongs to the state it’s in, but the water running underground belongs to whoever has the biggest drill; this is known as absolute dominion. So in Fryeburg, ME, Poland Spring, owned by Nestle (yes, chocolate Nestle does water, too!) can bottle water and sell it to people in ME unregulated by the FDA and for up to 1900 times the price of tap water. The movie begins with the anecdote of Fryeburg and takes the viewer into the problems of plastic, trash, marketing, and the FDA. Shocking statistics are paired with saddening photos: e.g. 50% of the world recycles its water bottles while only 20% of the United States recycles its bottles, paired with the image of ocean water that has become plastic soup due to littering. We are really left with the problem of money or time/convenience. Bottled water is such an easy thing; it’s right there, whenever you want it, and it’s throwaway. But it’s ridiculously expensive and completely unregulated. People drink bottled water because they’re afraid of what’s in their taps when really tap water is tested up to 300 times a day and all the findings are open to the public. Bottled water is rarely, if ever, tested and when it is tested it’s done by scientists hired and paid off by the industries themselves. Last April, I bought an aluminum water bottle from TTF for $20 and since then have been getting my still-cold, still-refreshing water from taps and fountains for free. Think about how much money you spend on water bottles in a year. Think about where that water came from. Is buying that water bottle really better for you? Not according to this movie, or to me.

Buy the movie here: Tapped

What You Need to Know About Natural Gas Production

Abby — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:33:37 +0000

Note: The following post is from TTF’s newest team member, Abby Grosslein, who is our terrific new intern from Arcadia University. Read more about Abby on our staff page. Read about on her reactions to the TEDX film, What You Need to Know About Natural Gas Production, below.

What You Need to Know About Natural Gas Production is the type of video you don’t want to watch but really need to. People don’t understand the implications of our current energy extraction. Natural gas is something that we think of as coming out of nowhere; something that “they” are telling us is safe. “We use only water, soap and guar gum,” they say, but even that is a false statement when there are carcinogens in our soaps and other cosmetic products [The Story of Cosmetics, The Story of Stuff Project]. We’re becoming a society where nothing is safe and where nothing is true. I think the main point of this video is that we have a right to know what exactly is going on. Don’t let the gas companies tell you that they’re stimulating the ground when they’re really injecting chemicals to create man-made mini earthquakes. Natural gas drilling is a dirty, long, polluting process that is equating country air and land with urban levels of toxins. I understand that our country needs to be less dependent on foreign energy, but we have to be conscious about the effects that local energy has on our country. We should only be happy about local energy if it’s safe for us.

Blue Gold World Water Wars

Katie — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:06:18 +0000

Blue Gold: World Waters Wars is a very scary film. It takes a probing look into the world of water privatization . . . and the results aren’t pretty. People are literally dying in parts of the world due to the privatization of their water supply. One particularly heartbreaking scene describes the story of two young girls in Kenya whose shack caught fire one day while they were home alone. There was no way for the girls to access water, and their neighbors, who were able to access corporate-controlled water only for an obscenely high price, literally could not afford to put the fire out. Both girls died.

Suffice it to say, this movie is disturbing. It is also chocked full of valuable information, to the point where it can sometimes feel like information overload. Teachers who want to use Blue Gold as a teaching tool would probably find it most beneficial to show in excerpts in order to give students time to digest and reflect upon all of the complicated information that is presented in the film.

While Blue Gold contains some seriously disturbing facts and images, it is not all gloom and doom. The story that resonated most with me personally was that of Ryan Hreljac, a young Canadian boy who heard about the lack of water access in the developing world and decided to do something about it. Told by his teacher that a well would cost $70 to build, first grader Ryan approached his parents for the money. His parents gave him an opportunity to earn the money by doing household chores, figuring he would never follow through. About four months later, Ryan took his $70 to a well-building foundation, only to find that wells actually cost something more along the lines of $2,000.

Little Ryan was not deterred. He kept raising money and ended up establishing Ryan’s Well Foundation, which has since raised millions of dollars for clean water solutions in the developing world. It is stories like these that make me so proud of the work we do at TTF. We can only hope that for every greedy corporation, every polluter, every person who has given up on clean water issues altogether, there is someone like Ryan dedicated to creating positive solutions. In fact, from now on, every time I go into a first grade classroom, I’m going to think about Ryan and all the difference he has made. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next Ryan Hreljac is sitting right here in the TTF watershed!

Watch the Blue Gold trailer below!

Buy it here:Blue Gold: World Water Wars

Blue Man Group Tours NY Treatment Plant

Katie — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:01:33 +0000

Check out this awesome video of the Blue Man Group touring a wastewater treatment facility in New York. We highly recommend touring our water treatment plants in Philadelphia — as long as you don’t tear things up like the Blue Man Group!