Whew, let’s take a little break from the Timor Sea drilling spill and watch a movie about…drilling. Split Estate premieres tomorrow, October 17, on Planet Green (a Discovery Network channel). It’s also showing on the 18th, 22nd and 23rd. You can view a trailer here.

Split Estate takes a tour of the Rockies, looking at the boom in natural-gas drilling from New Mexico to Montana and its impact on landowners – most of whom don’t own the mineral rights under their property, and can’t legally stop the mineral owners from coming onto their land to drill.

The filmmakers description:

Imagine discovering that you don’t own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. Imagine having little recourse, other than accepting an unregulated industry in your backyard. Split Estate maps a tragedy in the making, as citizens in the path of a new drilling boom in the Rocky Mountain West struggle against the erosion of their civil liberties, their communities and their health.

This movie gives you an up-close look at some of the ares that SkyTruth has been studying from above.