coming soon:
The Documentary Burning Man
Doesn’t Want You to See –
Exposing the True Environmental Destruction of the Black Rock Desert
This isn’t speculation.
Each year, more than 70,000 people descend on the Black Rock Desert to “celebrate freedom.”
What they leave behind is not beauty. Not art. Not culture. It’s a chemical wasteland. This isn’t speculation.
This is evidence. This is science. This is hypocrisy.
If you attend this event, you’re part of the problem.
Lab Results: The Playa Is Toxic
Independent Soil Analysis From the 2024 Burning Man Event
We asked a scientist to look over our results without telling him where we took the samples, and he said it resembles an industrial site.
Burning Man has turned a National Conservation Area into something that resembles an industrial site.
9.4K+
mg/kg of petroleum oil
— (Hell Station Fueling Area) nearly 9,500× above detection thresholds
1.2K+
mg/kg diesel hydrocarbons
(DPW Shore)
1K+
mg/kg residual diesel fuel
(DPW Shore Fuel Area) — consistent with industrial spills
0.81
mg/L of arsenic in leachate
— over 80× the EPA’s drinking water limit
SOURCES:
EPA Drinking Water Standards – Arsenic Limit
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Arsenic in Drinking Water.
Petroleum Hydrocarbon Cleanup Thresholds in Nevada
Nevada Division of Environmental Protection – TPH Screening Levels.
Persistence of Hydrocarbons in Arid, Alkaline Soils
EPA CLU-IN – Biodegradation in Low Moisture Environments. (search: “arid soil hydrocarbon biodegradation”)
Toxicological Profile for Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH)
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
Yes, the Playa’s chemistry is naturally harsh, with high pH and trace arsenic.
But this isn’t just dirt—it’s a sealed alkaline lakebed that doesn’t recover.
When hydrocarbons hit, they don’t break down. They spread. They leach. They linger.
1,000,000+ Pieces of
Micro Debris Left Behind Every Year
Even BLM inspection reports expose the truth:
2014 →
618,518 pieces of micro-debris documented post-cleanup
2015 →
1,042,659 pieces — over 1 million fragments
2016 →
557 debris items per acre, across the city footprint
Post-2016
BLM stopped counting, switching to a weak visual standard
The real number today? Likely millions.
A hidden layer of pollution no PR campaign can sweep away.
SOURCE:
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
The Wildlife Is Paying the Price
In 2023, rain triggered the hatching of fairy shrimp and triops — key food for migratory birds traveling the Pacific Flyway (IFLScience).
Then came the tire ruts (Nevada Independent), engines, and fuel contamination (independent testing).
You’re not just harming “dirt” — you’re collapsing a food chain.
Air Pollution: What Attendees & Local Wildlife Breathe
According to the Bureau of Land Management’s 2019 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Air Resources Baseline Technical Report), which incorporates monitoring data from the 2017 Burning Man event, air quality on the playa reached PM₁₀ levels between 1,300 and 2,200 µg/m³ — 8.6 to 14.6 times above the EPA’s 24-hour standard of 150 µg/m³. Fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) also exceeded the standard of 35 µg/m³, with 24-hour averages peaking at over 360 µg/m³.
The BLM attributed most of this particulate pollution to dust generated by vehicle and foot traffic on the playa, which is easily lofted into the air by wind. Additional contributors include emissions from generators, art cars, and open burns. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies outdoor air pollution — which includes fine particulate matter — as a Group 1 carcinogen, and the EPA links exposure to increased risk of heart disease, lung disease, and premature death.
SOURCES
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – Air Resources Baseline Technical Report (2019 Draft EIS)
Official government measurements of PM₁₀ and PM₂.₅ at Burning Man 2017.
EPA – Particulate Matter (PM) Health and Environmental Effects
EPA health classifications and Group 1 carcinogen designation.
48 Hills – “Burning Man is getting dirtier and dirtier” (2024)
Journalistic summary citing Oliphant’s findings and discussing emission sources.
The Trash (and Feces) That Locals Inherit
The Black Rock Desert isn’t the only place scarred by Burning Man. When the “leave no trace” crowd finally packs up, thousands of tons of their garbage doesn’t just vanish: it gets trucked straight into Reno, Fernley, and other nearby towns.
Local streets, neighborhoods, parking lots, and even stretches of desert wilderness become dumping grounds. Residents have documented mountains of trash abandoned at gas stations, in parking lots, and along the outskirts of town.
And it’s not just trash.
The same attendees who preach sustainability in the desert are dumping broken bicycles, leaking RV fluids, giant jugs of urine, and raw human feces into communities that never asked to host their waste.
The Government Knew. They Did Nothing.
The Bureau of Land Management allowed it.
Year after year, they ignored contamination in a federally protected National Conservation Area.
No enforcement. No accountability. No mitigation.
Just a nod and a permit.
Burning Man preaches sustainability, then dumps diesel, chokes the sky, and grades its own homework while volunteers from a captured federal agency nod along.
Meanwhile, about 25,000 Nevadans rely on groundwater from the Quinn River/Black Rock Desert watershed, the closed basin that includes the Burning Man site.
And Burning Man’s defenders?
They tried to stop us from filming that too.
here's what we saw
The Cleanup Cover-Up
We were there. Here’s what we saw:
- Rangers and DPW staff aggressively tried to block us
- BLM lied about the inspection schedule
- No BLM rangers, only volunteers walking in circles grading their own work
- We followed with metal detectors—found debris they ignored
This wasn’t oversight.
It was orchestrated spectacle.
The Hypocrisy Is Legal and Documented
In 2023, the Burning Man Project sued the BLM
to stop a geothermal energy plant:
“The Black Rock Desert is one of the most pristine and environmentally sensitive landscapes in the U.S.”
“Geothermal lights and noise would harm wildlife and the night sky.”
Then they:
- Build a diesel city
- Blast sound camps
- Burn gas-based art
- Poison the soil
- Crush hatchlings
- Grade their own cleanup
They sued to stop clean energy—while destroying the very land they claimed was sacred.
This isn’t contradiction.
It’s a lie. Weaponized.
This Documentary Exposes
Organizers. Regulators. Ticket-buyers.
No one is spared.
You’re not “radical” if your art leaves oil in the water table.
You’re not “conscious” if your tire ruts kill fairy shrimp.
You’re not an “environmentalist” if your legacy is leachable arsenic.
And History Will Not Be Kind
When future generations look back, they won’t see art or innovation.
They won’t be inspired. They’ll be disgusted. And we’ll make sure they know who is responsible.
They’ll see the scorched remains of a failed experiment in self-worship.
They’ll see 70,000 people playing gods on sacred land —
burning fuel, dumping waste, and leaving the Earth worse than they found it.
They’ll ask how a generation so obsessed with “climate justice”
threw a diesel-powered rave on federally protected soil.
How Burning Man Deals With Sexual Assault Claims
Stay tuned for the documentary exposing the truth.
People should be held accountable for destroying a National Conservation Area.
Call the Bureau of Land Management and demand strict non-biased environmental testing of the soil, air, and trash, and the effects it has on the local wildlife, watershed, and environment.