Fracking protest in New Brunswick (photo: Colin McPhail)
HALIFAX – New Brunswick’s minister of energy is urging people participating in a demonstration against exploration for shale gas fracking to obey the law.
Craig Leonard says while he recognizes the right to protest against the industry, matters will be turned over to the police if such protests break laws.
Leonard’s comments came as the RCMP monitored a protest today near Rexton.
Some people have blocked an entrance in the area where SWN Resources is storing natural gas exploration equipment.
Leonard was in Halifax to deliver a speech at an annual energy conference hosted by the Maritimes Energy Association.
During his speech, Leonard said a well regulated shale gas industry could create an economic renewal in his province, estimating there may be enough gas to provide the province with all of its electricity needs for the next half century.
British Columbians have been hearing a lot of glowing rhetoric from their political leaders about the economic promise of building a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. We’ve heard that our gas – which is fast running out of steam in the North American market – will be transformed into a $100 billion “prosperity” fund for our provincial treasury, all by cooling and exporting it to new markets in Asia.
The extraordinary claims being levied by the BC Liberals have gone largely unquestioned in the mainstream media – which is why, all this week, The Common Sense Canadian will be drilling down on the government’s policy.
For starters, I will be speaking in six different northwest BC communities, alongside local organizations like Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Douglas Channel Watch and NoMorePipelines.ca.
Through these events – highlights of which will be taped and posted to The Common Sense Canadian – along with a series of articles and videos in these pages, we’ll be examining the entire BC LNG plan. From the fracking in northeast BC and Alberta that would need to be dramatically ramped up to feed these coastal plants, to the four-plus major, new pipelines that would cross BC’s wilderness and communities to pump the gas to Kitimat and Prince Rupert, to the plants themselves, to the world’s largest tankers that would carry the liquefied gas to Asia.
Finally, we’ll examine the economic realities of a program that promises to be the biggest boondoggle in the province’s history – marshalling the best available evidence from around the world, rather than the wishful thinking of Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman and his government.
In short, we will present the other side of the BC LNG fairytale being concocted by BC’s political leaders and media. And we’ll look at some sustainable economic alternatives that could provide a real, healthy future for the people and environment of BC.
If you’re in one of the communities in northwest BC that will be directly affected by these proposed pipelines, LNG plants and terminals, I invite you to join us for one of these presentations – to learn more about the consequences for the health of your community, environment, and economic future (click each link for more details).
And stay tuned to exclusive coverage and analysis from The Common Sense Canadian and our team of expert commentators. Together, we’ll get to the bottom of this BC LNG and fracking pipe dream.
Australia’s Colongra gas-powered electrical plant – similar technology would be needed to power BC’s LNG
VICTORIA – British Columbia’s pledge to develop the world’s cleanest liquefied natural gas plants looks hazy to an environmental organization that says the province appears to be prepared to allow oil and gas companies to belch carbon emissions three-times higher than those in Australia and Norway.
A report released Monday by Clean Energy Canada, an affiliate of Tides Canada, warns that without B.C. government policy leadership, LNG produced in the province could emit more than three-times the carbon produced at other plants around the world.
“We conclude that this leadership gap can be closed if the government creates the policy environment that both directs and incentivizes the energy industry to employ a mix of strategies and technologies proven to drive carbon pollution down all the way across the life cycle of LNG production,” states the report entitled “The Cleanest LNG in the World?”
But B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak said the report may be making assumptions on government directions before they are officially decided.
Government blowing smoke?
Polak said she is under directions from Premier Christy Clark to develop the cleanest LNG industry and challenging negotiations are underway that take into account the province’s goal to be a world environmental leader without adversely affecting the bottom line of the oil and gas firms who want to invest in the province.
Clark’s Liberals have said LNG development represents a trillion-dollar economic opportunity that could create 100,000 jobs.
“They’ve outlined a whole number of ways in which we can address the challenges posed by LNG development and greenhouse gases,” said Polak about the report.
“For our part, we know that that’s part of the balancing that we need to do in our negotiations with the proponents because, of course, we have to balance our interest in protecting the environment with the viability of their projects, and so we have to take a look at what’s possible for them and what hits their bottom line.”
LNG in conflict with climate targets
B.C.’s environmental goals include the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target Act of 2007 that put into law the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020. The government has been steadfast in its pledge to meet those targets.
Clean Energy Canada spokeswoman Merran Smith said the emissions targets are already in jeopardy, but increased carbon emissions from proposed LNG makes the reduction target virtually impossible to achieve.
She said the Clean Energy Canada report focused on the carbon footprint that could be left from the proposed B.C. LNG plants if the government allows the plants and gas-field operations to be powered by natural gas as opposed to electricity, which is considered clean and renewable.
“There’s really no details on what does that mean, cleanest energy in the world,” she said.
[quote]What the companies are proposing to do in B.C. would be three times dirtier than the existing cleanest LNG in the world.[/quote]
Cooling gas by burning gas
Smith said most of the companies proposing LNG developments in B.C. are putting forward plans to power their operations with natural gas.
Earlier, Natural Gas Minister Rich Coleman said at least two plants were proposing to run part of their operations with electricity. There are currently about a half dozen LNG plant proposals in B.C.
Smith said B.C. could reach its goal of the cleanest LNG industry in the world if electricity was used to power the proposed LNG plants on the northwest coast and the gas fields in northeastern B.C. She said gas companies should also move to carbon capture technology that involves storing carbon dioxide emissions underground.
“These technologies are proven and in places like Australia and Norway the government mandated them,” said Smith.
Carbon tax on way for LNG
Clark has said the Liberals will introduce legislation next spring that includes a taxation policy and regulations relating to LNG developments.
Polak said she was not about to speculate about the environmental rules that will be included in that legislation.
But the government did offer a package royalty credits of almost $116 million Monday to help companies build roads and pipelines for the natural gas industry in the province’s northeast.
More taxpayer subsidies for gas industry
The government said the royalty credits will go towards 12 new infrastructure projects in northeast B.C., that will eventually advance the growth of LNG development in B.C.
Last week, Clark offered municipal leaders from northwest B.C. concerned about an LNG-driven population boom $150,000 to conduct studies on their hospital, school, sewer, road, bridge and social needs.
Environmental consultant Jessica Ernst on her land in Alberta (Colin Smith photo)
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Alberta resident Jessica Ernst is warning Newfoundland about the risks of hydraulic fracturing, saying she blames the contentious fracking process for making her well water flammable.
“It does ignite like a blow torch,” she said from her rural home near Rosebud, Alta.
[quote]It’s too dangerous to even use to flush toilets. One spark could cause the gas to ignite and cause a serious explosion.[/quote]
Ernst visited Stephenville, N.L., on Sunday to convey what she says is a cautionary tale about an oil and gas extraction method that industry proponents defend as safe. Debate about fracking is escalating on Newfoundland’s scenic west coast where there are plans to drill exploration wells near Gros Morne National Park pending government approvals.
Newfoundland on the edge of fracking
Ernst was invited by a concerned citizens group to speak to local residents.
“For areas that do not have fracking yet, once you let it in, you’ll never get it out,” she said.
Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping water, nitrogen, sand and chemical additives at high pressure to fracture shale rock formations and allow gas or oil to flow through well bores to the surface. It’s increasingly used across Canada and the U.S. as energy demands grow while conventional sources wane.
Ernst, a 56-year-old environmental consultant with a Master of Science degree and 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, is hardly a lone voice raising alarms. The award-winning documentary Gasland tracks complaints of water contamination in rural areas across the U.S. where gas wells were fracked.
Industry’s claims of no water contamination challenged
Emma Lui, national water campaigner for the citizens’ interest group Council of Canadians, said a lack of independent research before and after fracking means safety assurances ring hollow.
[quote]It’s common for industry and some governments to say there are no known cases of water contamination, but that’s because they don’t have that baseline information. They don’t actually have the adequate research to back those claims up.[/quote]
Tom Marshall, Newfoundland and Labrador’s natural resources minister, said he has heard those concerns and is gathering input across Canada to ensure provincial regulations reflect best practices.
Newfoundland grants exploration licences, consulting with geologists
The province has not yet received formal applications to frack wells in western Newfoundland although exploration licences have been granted in what’s known as the Green Point shale, he said in an interview.
The Progressive Conservative government will consult geologists and geophysicists now studying Newfoundland’s west coast where, unlike Alberta’s more shallow coalbed gas deposits, it’s believed deep shale formations hold oil, he added.
Any drilling proposal would get full environmental scrutiny, Marshall said.
[quote]Our government has always been one that supports economic development. But only within a framework that ensures protection of the environment and protection of public health and safety.[/quote]
Ernst said Newfoundlanders should be wary.
“We got the same promises here.”
Ernst’s $33 million fracking lawsuit
She has filed a $33-million lawsuit with the Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta against North American energy producer Encana, the provincial energy regulator and the provincial government. Her unproven statement of claim alleges gas wells fracked around her property between 2001 and 2006 unleashed hazardous amounts of methane and ethane gas and other chemicals into her private water well.
Ernst claims that Encana fracked “without taking necessary precautions to protect in-use aquifers or water wells” from such contamination. She also claims that regulators at the Energy Resources Conservation Board, now the Alberta Energy Regulator, failed to reasonably act on her reports of contamination or her concerns that Encana breached laws and regulations meant to protect water supplies.
Finally, Ernst claims the Alberta government failed to reasonably protect her well water, investigate contamination or correct reported damage.
Bob Curran, a spokesman for the Alberta Energy Regulator, declined in an email to comment on the lawsuit as it’s before the courts.
Alberta defends fracking safety
Bart Johnson, a spokesman for the Alberta government, also declined to comment on the case but said fracking has been done safely for decades.
“In regard to hydraulic fracturing generally, the technology has been used safely in Alberta for over 60 years and its use is tightly regulated and monitored by the Alberta Energy Regulator,” he said in an email. “Approximately 174,000 wells have been fractured in the province since the technology was introduced in the 1950s.”
The province and energy regulator have not filed statements of defence.
Encana blames Ernst
In its statement of defence, Encana denies all of Ernst’s allegations and blames her for any pollution.
It says Encana complied with or exceeded all laws and regulations “in respect of its coal bed methane exploration, drilling, stimulation and production operations” and took all necessary precautions to safeguard the Ernst water well.
“To the extent that natural gas or related substances have been detected on the Ernst property or in the Ernst well, which is denied, such substances occurred naturally or by other causes.”
Encana suggests Ernst failed to maintain her water well and is at fault for any contamination. It also says two gas wells at the heart of her allegations were not fracked but “stimulated” — a process that pumps inert nitrogen gas at high pressure into coal seams to release natural gas.
Skin burns
Ernst says in a rebuttal filed in court that she sought professional advice to look after her well since she bought the 20-hectare property in 1998. She first noticed problems eight years ago when she developed strange burns on her skin and her two dogs recoiled from a fresh bowl of water, she said.
She now trucks fresh water in from another community.
“If they can frack all around Gros Morne, they’ll be able to frack all of Newfoundland,” Ernst said. “They did that here.”
a wellhead, crude oil tank, toxic waste water tank llifted from ground, separator, and combustor flares submerged under flood waters – Weld County, Colorado (all images courtesy of EcoFlight)
Earlier this week, The Common Sense Canadian brought you the underreported story of flood damage to oil and gas infrastructure in Colorado – featuring photos taken by a local group concerned about toxic chemicals and hydrocarbons leaking into rivers and farmland, in the wake of the state’s catastrophic storm.
Today, we bring you new aerial photos of the wreckage, taken Tuesday over hard-hit Weld County by Colorado conservation photography group EcoFlight.
Colorado is one of a dozen or more states that have been part of the controversial “fracking” boom across the United States and around the world. The state’s recent flooding raises the question: should fracking operations be located in a floodplain – especially one with a history of major floods?
Moreover, what oil and gas-related environmental and health impacts are really occurring as a result of this disaster?
Despite the lack of mainstream media coverage of the issue, we do know from the Denver Post of one confirmed pipeline rupture and at least 5,250 gallons of crude oil spilled into the South Platte River from two tank batteries ripped open by the flood.
According to The Post:
[quote]The flood that began late last week toppled dozens of oil and gas storage tanks and swamped other production facilities at sites in the flood plain. Earlier this week, oil drums, some empty, some full, could be seen floating in the river as far east as Kersey.[/quote]
Representatives for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association said Tuesday that nearly 1,900 oil and gas wells in the affected areas have been shut, with industry personnel inspecting and repairing sites.
That does little to reassure Cliff Willmeng of the local anti-fracking group East Boulder County United, who noted earlier this week, “Many of these chemicals are carcinogenic, neurotoxic, and known disruptors of the human endocrine system. As of today there is no testing taking place, industrial, independent or otherwise to determine the extent of the contamination, nor any talk of it.”
Storage yard for oil and gas drilling equipment
In a follow-up conversation today, Willmeng indicated industry and government authorities have done nothing to allay his concerns:
[quote]What’s perfectly clear here is that the industry is going to act on this disaster in terms of damage control. They’re not prepared to respond to this – they don’t have the labour power, the technical resources or the motivation. This needs to go to higher authorities – the oil and gas industry can’t be the authority on the environmental assessment and remediation of Weld County.[/quote]
A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Todd Hartman, downplayed the risks of contamination from open storage pits for toxic frack fluids, noting there are relatively few of these pits in the region of the flood. “We are assessing the impact to open pits, including building a count of how many pits may have been affected,” said Hartman.
Pennsylvania State University petroleum engineering professor Robert Watson also tried to calm the fears of people like Willmeng, telling The Globe and Mail, “The amount of wastewater is so small compared to the amount of water passing through there, and compared to the chemicals used in farming.”
To Willmeng:
[quote]These statements are highly speculative…State authorities don’t even know the scale of the damage yet – nor do they have the people required to properly investigate the situation. What we’re seeing here is a classic game of passing the buck, downplaying the actual damage in an attempt to allay the fears of the public.[/quote]
His organization and others are calling for an immediate statewide moratorium on oil and as activity. In addition, “we’re calling for the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission to end its litigation and harassment of communities protecting themselves by denying oil and gas activity.” The groups have created a petition to this effect.
There are currently five communities in Colorado voting on ballot initiatives to create moratoriums or outright bans of oil and gas activities.
All photos below courtesy of EcoFlight. See more aerial images on their website here.
Drilling rig submerged in flood waters. Black piping is standing upright to the derrickSubmerged well padAppears to be a flowline which carries petrochemicals from surrounding active oil and gas well padsOverturned crude oil tanks
St. Vrain River – Weld, Colorado (all photos courtesy of East Boulder County United)
A Colorado citizens’ group is raising alarm bells about the possible release of toxic chemicals into local rivers from flood-stricken fracking operations. At least one broken pipeline has been confirmed by local authorities.
The group, East Boulder County United – which aims to keep the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing out of its communities – has been posting photos of natural gas infrastructure and chemical storage tanks inundated by recent floods to its facebook page. See this staggering collection of photos here, continued at bottom of story.
Weld County, Colorado
The group began sharing these images in an effort to wake the public and media up to this untold chapter of Colorado’s widely-covered flood story. Says East Boulder County United spokesperson Cliff Willmeng:
[quote]Our concern is that all of these sites contain various amounts of hazardous industrial wastes that are now capable of spilling into the waterways and onto the agricultural land. Many of these chemicals are carcinogenic, neurotoxic, and known disruptors of the human endocrine system. As of today there is no testing taking place, industrial, independent or otherwise to determine the extent of the contamination, nor any talk of it. And one can guarantee that this week the COGCC will be issuing more drilling permits even as the hydrocarbons flow into the rivers. [/quote]
According to one of the few local media stories to report on the oil and gas dimension of the flood, from The Denver Post yesterday, at least
one pipeline leak has been confirmed by Weld County Emergency Manager Roy Rudisill. “Other industry pipelines are sagging as saturated sediment erodes around the expanding river,” the Post reports.
Industry crews “are shutting in the lines, shutting in the wells,” Rudisill told the paper.
A flooded Encana operation in Boulder County
The photos were taken on Friday and Saturday afternoon throughout several northern Colorado farming communities at the centre of the state’s “500 year flood” – in neighbouring Boulder and Weld counties.
According to The Denver Post:
[quote]Oil drums, tanks and other industrial debris mixed into the swollen river flowing northeast. County officials did not give locations of where the pipeline broke and where other pipelines were compromised. [/quote]
Willmeng partly blames a lack of regulatory oversight for the situation he and his fellow landowners find themselves in. “There are over 20,000 oil and gas wells in Weld County alone,” Willmeng told The Common Sense Canadian via email. “By comparison there are only 17 inspectors for the entire state of Colorado.
“Prior to the floods we knew that the oil and gas industry was left to police itself. Now the rivers, agricultural zones and residences get to bear that decision.”
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Colorado has been one of a number of states hit by the recent boom in fracking operations – including Pennsylvania, New York State, Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Arkansas, North Dakota and Louisiana.
Willmeng’s group is also concerned the oil and gas companies whose operations are flooded will downplay the risk of contamination:
[quote]The industry is going to claim that it remotely shut in all of the relevant wells. Unfortunately not all the hydrocarbons are protected within the well bore. There are exposed pipes, VOC burners and infrastructure related to the storage of oil, gas and
toxic industrial waste that all sit above the ground. The flood waters have hit all of these structures where they sit. [/quote]
The Common Sense Canadian has covered the issue of water contamination from fracking for some time. Stay tuned for more updates on this developing story.
All Photos courtesy of East Boulder County United
County Line Road, on border of Weld and Boulder countiesWeld County, ColoradoSt. Vrain River – Weld CountyWeld County, ColoradoWeld County, Colorado
By electing a party whose principal economic platform is the development of British Columbia’s natural gas resources, BC voters have decided to tempt disaster. The province’s premier, apparently oblivious to the portentous warnings of climate science, has created a new ministry specifically tasked with the responsibility of developing at least three Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants by 2020 — the industry envisions an eventual total of six — with the objective of shipping massive quantities of this product to an apparently energy-hungry Asian market.
The strategy is couched in exuberant promise. Billions of dollars in royalties are expected to quickly erase BC’s debt, provide employment for thousands, end homelessness, fund education, solve healthcare problems and create a huge legacy fund. An estimated trillion dollars in additional economic activity over 30 years is supposed to bring unparalleled wealth to the province. In response to environmental concerns, LNG is being pitched as a “climate solution” because burning natural gas is advertised as producing only about half the carbon dioxide of oil. Everyone is supposed to relax, trust that the future will be secure under the guidance of political expedience, and disregard the frenzy of drilling, fracking and pumping.
However, such promise comes with concerns. Global carbon dioxide emissions continue to rocket upward, with no reductions in sight. World consumption of coal is soaring, increasing in almost every country but the United States. Japan, stung by the trauma of the meltdown of its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is shifting its energy toward coal and gas — its carbon dioxide emissions are up 30 percent. Even Germany, with its idealistic pragmatism on carbon emissions, is building more coal-fired electrical generation stations as it, too, cuts back on nuclear power. Meanwhile, the promise of making coal clean with carbon capture and storage has been mostly ineffectual, both economically and practically. To complete the scenario, huge new supplies of oil are now rushing to market from the innovation of horizontal drilling in shale deposits. The International Energy Agency has measured the daily global consumption of oil at 89.8 million barrels per day for 2012, and expects a rise to 90.6 mbd for 2013. So LNG will be added to the climate-changing effects of unrestrained oil and coal consumption.
With no foreseeable shortages of fossil fuels for decades, and with the prospect of nearly limitless quantities of natural gas inundating the market by pipeline and LNG tankers, economists are predicting a decrease in the dollar value of oil and coal. This will encourage their use, reduce the pressure for efficiency, and undermine the renewable energy option from such sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and tidal — precisely what the global climate crisis does not need.
Assuming that the foundational principles of climate science are correct — as they almost certainly are — then the development of natural gas and LNG in BC is a regressive strategy, a shortsighted and reckless venture in the direction of catastrophe. When burning 1 kg of natural gas produces 2.75 kg of carbon dioxide, advertising LNG as “green” is a political strategy, not an environmental one.
Considerable evidence argues against the environmental benefits of LNG — cleaner than oil and coal is hardly a sterling recommendation for burning another fossil fuel. Extracting reliable quantities of natural gas from sparse concentrations in shale requires nearly constant drilling. Fracking necessitates the injection of toxic chemicals and inordinate amounts of valuable water into sometimes unpredictable strata. Leakage of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, commonly occurs in the process. Pumping adds to emissions. The cooling and compressing to convert natural gas to LNG is extremely energy intensive. Then ocean-going shipping contributes to the inefficiency. By totalling all these expenditures of energy, some critics calculate that LNG is almost as carbon intensive as coal.
Furthermore, the economic benefits for BC are likely overly optimistic. Many countries are presently planning or building LNG plants for export purposes — a dozen in the US and several in Australia. And Russia, with natural gas resources that dwarf the ones in this province, will be piping supplies directly to China. Meanwhile, Asian countries are being careful to diversify their LNG sources, a strategy designed to keep the energy market competitive and prices down.
But the sociological argument against LNG is, perhaps, the most damning and compelling. Societies that come to rely heavily on the export of raw resources invariably stultify their human potential and handicap their future prospects. Their economies become narrow, brittle and unstable, subject to the vagaries of boom-and-bust cycles. Skewed in favour of fast and easy money rather than solid and sustainable enterprise, they relinquish their economic control to the decisions of others. When the source of their wealth is fragile and uncertain, their aspirations invariably overreach their ability to pay and their collective psychology begins to exhibit the personality characteristics of the addict.
Such resource-based societies lose resilience, independence and confidence. So they are inclined to perceive themselves as vulnerable victims rather than confident initiators. As their collective psyche suffers an erosion of power, sophistication, pride and morale, they become cynical, an unhealthy psychology that combines with a frayed social fabric to make their problems progressively more difficult to solve. A sense of defeat and powerlessness even manifests as a declining involvement in participatory democracy.
British Columbians will pay a high price for LNG. But the cost to the global environment will be immeasurably higher. BC owes itself and the world much more than this.
What promised to be a ground-breaking report into the effects of natural gas hydraulic fracturing on groundwater has devolved into a classic case of the fox in charge of the hen house.
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s hotly anticipated study into links between fracking and water contamination in Wyoming has been co-opted by the very company whose activities it was investigating – Canadian natural gas titan, EnCana.
ProPublica is reporting that the Wyoming study – a draft of which was published in 2011, stirring up significant controversy and opposition from industry – has been abandoned by the EPA to Wyoming state authorities and will now be funded by EnCana.
EnCana is also at the centre of a high-profile lawsuit regarding water contamination being brought in Alberta court by Jessica Ernst, an environmental consultant with 30 years experience working in oil and gas. Ernst herself released a landmark compendium of evidenceregarding water contamination from fracking last month.
The draft 2011 Wyoming report found carcinogenic fracking fluids in a pair of deep groundwater monitoring wells drilled into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyoming. Local residents had been complaining that drilling “fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution,” according to ProPublica – which has been doing leading-edge investigative work into the impacts of fracking on water from several years now.
Now, ProPublica reveals that the EPA is backing away from the research – which was the first of its kind to establish a scientific link between fracking and groundwater contamination – under significant pressure from the industry.
Industry advocates say the EPA’s turnabout reflects an overdue recognition that it had over-reached on fracking and that its science was critically flawed.
But environmentalists see an agency that is systematically disengaging from any research that could be perceived as questioning the safety of fracking or oil drilling, even as President Obama lays out a plan to combat climate change that rests heavily on the use of natural gas.
Over the past 15 months, they point out, the EPA has:
Closed an investigation into groundwater pollution in Dimock, Pa., saying the level of contamination was below federal safety triggers.
Abandoned its claim that a driller in Parker County, Texas, was responsible for methane gas bubbling up in residents’ faucets, even though a geologist hired by the agency confirmed this finding.
Sharply revised downward a 2010 estimate showing that leaking gas from wells and pipelines was contributing to climate change, crediting better pollution controls by the drilling industry even as other reports indicate the leaks may be larger than previously thought.
Failed to enforce a statutory ban on using diesel fuel in fracking.
“We’re seeing a pattern that is of great concern,” said Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. “They need to make sure that scientific investigations are thorough enough to ensure that the public is getting a full scientific explanation.”
The agency is publicly maintaining the above developments and issues are unrelated, yet, according to ProPublica, “In private conversations…high-ranking agency officials acknowledge that fierce pressure from the drilling industry and its powerful allies on Capitol Hill – as well as financial constraints and a delicate policy balance sought by the White House — is squelching their ability to scrutinize not only the effects of oil and gas drilling, but other environmental protections as well.”
Environmental consultant Jessica Ernst on her land in Alberta (Colin Smith photo)
Jessica Ernst, a high-profile, Alberta-based environmental consultant, has released a comprehensive summary of science, facts and documents relating to groundwater contamination from the controversial practice of natural gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
The culmination of ten years of research, the 93-page reportis sure to cause a stir with the energy sector and its critics. Groundwater contamination has been a key concern surrounding the booming fracking industry.
“Jessica Ernst has made a strong case,” says Will Koop, BC Tapwater Alliance Coordinator. “Her collection provides excellent and technically friendly working tools, enabling the public to draw their own conclusions from the critical information. This is not just an invaluable document for North Americans, but for the world.”
Having consulted for the oil and gas industry for thirty years, Ernst became concerned about its impacts when they began to hit home – “living with dangerous contamination after EnCana hydraulically fractured my community’s drinking water aquifers.”
Ernst’s battle with Encana prompted her to bring a landmark lawsuit against the company in Alberta last year.
Ernst cites the industry’s propensity for secrecy and covering up impacts from its operations as a key motivation for compiling this broad spectrum of evidence. In the preface to her report, she quotes renowned energy journalist Andrew Nikiforuk: “As somebody who has reported for 20 years on this industry in [Alberta], I can tell you I’ve met hundreds of people in this province who have signed confidentiality agreements once their water was blown, once their livestock was killed, once a member of their family were injured, once they lost most of their grass or their trees as a result of fouling events, contamination events, air pollution, you name it.”
With this compendium of scientific data, correspondence with regulators, internal government and industry communications, transcripts from news reports, and links to a wide array of journalistic and academic references on the subject, Ernst aims to bring these issues into the light.
Ernst has gathered – in an unprecedented way – a large body of evidence which should raise serious questions for the public, regulators and policy makers about the environmental and human health impacts of fracking, particularly as we discuss a massive global expansion of the industry.
Watch this presentation by Caleb Behn, a young, First Nations lawyer-in-the-making from Treaty 8 territory in northeast BC – one of the most heavily industrialized places on earth. The subject of the forthcoming documentary film Fractured Land, Behn discusses the blending of indigenous and colonial law to address the conflict arising from intense resource development, such and natural gas fracking, hydroelectric dams, logging, mining, and industrial roads that permeate his ancestral lands and threaten his family’s traditional way of life. The one-hour presentation – shown here in three parts – was co-hosted at the Vancouver Public Library on February 28 by Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, Amnesty International and the Hul’qumi’numTreaty Group. Behn, who is Dunne Za/Cree on his mother’s side and Eh-Cho Dene on his father’s, recently completed law school through UVic and is now pursuing his articles at Ratcliff & Company in Vancouver.
