View on Fracking
To frack or not to frack — is there any question?
Thanks to the oil and gas industry for highlighting the many issues around the horizontal hydraulic fracturing occurring in our back yards. Recent statements, however, require some clarification.
Industry statement: “Fracking has been used in Alberta for more than 60 years.”
Clarification: Until 10 years ago, the “fracking” used in Alberta was vertical fracking. The horizontal fracturing now referred to as “fracking” is a new method using extreme pressures and huge volumes of water and chemicals. Gas and “well effluent” is flared off, creating unknown levels of air pollution.
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Industry statement: “Fracking is a safe, proven and government regulated activity.”
Clarification: Dr. John Cherry, Hydrologist, Chair, Shale Gas Panel, Council of Canadian Academies: “There is no scientific basis for claims that fracking is safe.”
Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, professor of Engineering and Teaching Fellow, Cornell University, speaking on horizontal fracking: “It was as if (I’d) been working on something (my) whole life and somebody comes and turns it into Frankenstein.”
Dr. Karlis Muehlenbachs, geochemist, professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta:
“The Alberta regulators are only interested in optimizing production.”
Industry statement: “Underground water supplies and fracturing operations are separated by thousands of meters of impermeable rock.”
Clarification: Our geology is part of the Foothills Disturbed Group. The rock beneath our feet is highly fractured and folded, creating pathways for migration of fracking fluids, heavy metals and radioactive materials into the aquifer.
Dr. Ingraffea: “Since the shale is already naturally fractured, there is no way humans can tell where the fluid will go.”
Industry statement: “Two layers of steel casing and cement . . . are used to protect fresh water supplies.”
Clarification: Fracking causes earth tremors and cement cracks. A high percentage of cementing fails within the first few months.
Dr. Ingraffea: “People’s water wells have been contaminated at a significant rate.”
Dr. Muehlenbachs, regarding leaking wells: “The problem is going to get worse, not better.”
Industry statement: “(Fracking fluid contains) additives used in common household products such as cleaning supplies and shampoo.”
Clarification: Thousands of litres of these chemicals, many of them highly toxic, are used in each well. Would you like to drink shampoo or “cleaning supplies?”
Industry statement: “Oil and gas are critical to our everyday lives.”
Clarification: Horizontal fracking is wasteful and uneconomic. Climate change is here, threatening our everyday lives, and Alberta has great potential for development of renewable energy.
We cannot afford to squeeze every last drop of fossil fuel out of the earth at the cost of our environment and our children’s future.
Some websites for further information: www.canadians.org/fracking, www.endocrinedisruption.com, www.facebook.com/abfrac, www.frackingcanada.ca, www.albertavoices.ca
Nielle Hawkwood,
Cochrane, Alta.
Hydro plan
Independent experts are calling the proposed Hydro’s $20 billion expansion plan risky. La Capra Associates are world-renowned experts who were commissioned by the Public Utilities Board to look into the NDP’s hydro plan. The report produced by La Capra shows the government is on the wrong track.
The report says the NDP’s Preferred Development Plan is of limited economic advantage over the alternatives considered.
The report criticizes how the NDP government is rushing into these plans, noting the year Manitoba may need extra power generation options is as late as 2033, a long time from now. It also debunks Manitoba Hydro’s rationale for building these dams way ahead of when they are needed, stating there is no proof Manitoba Hydro can sell excess power to the United States for profit over the longer period of time. La Capra calls the government’s Manitoba Hydro expansion plan out of date, misleading and extremely high-risk.
This begs the question: Why should Manitobans support the NDP’s high-risk proposal?
The report concludes by saying Manitoba Hydro’s plan will generate revenue for the government, as at least half of the benefits to these plans over the next several decades will be captured by the provincial government alone and not Manitoba Hydro ratepayers.
For the first 35 years, the province will be collecting tax benefits from items such as higher rates, water rental revenue and a one-percent surcharge to Manitoba Hydro based on the amount of money it borrows. According to documents filed by Manitoba Hydro at Public Utilities Board hearings, the provincial government will collect $117 million in water rental fees and $100 million in loan guarantees from Manitoba Hydro.
By 2032, those fees are projected to increase to $140 million for water rental and $230 million in loan guarantees over the course of the proposed development.
The total tax and fee hikes over the next 20 years alone is more than $9 billion.
Manitobans will pay higher hydro rates while shouldering all of this risk. The NDP government will collect more tax revenue from Manitobans, and assumes none of the risk. We don’t think this sounds good for Manitobans.
Ralph Eichler,
MLA for Lakeside,
Winnipeg, Man.
Protect women
While Canadians naturally recoil in horror when confronted by the recent news of widespread rape and murder in India, they would be well advised to look closer to home.
The widespread violence against Aboriginal women in B.C. is well documented and hardly a week goes by when more harrowing news is released to the media by various authorities.
The issue is a complex one, but unlike the challenges facing women in distant countries, we can easily make a real difference here in B.C. Wally Oppal outlined one simple solution in his report of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry: provide safe transportation between the small communities along B.C.’s highway of tears. While private, for profit transportation options exist, the deep poverty endemic to these communities ensures there will always be women hitchhiking despite the danger. They simply have no other option.
Given the huge numbers of women that have gone missing along that highway, it’s absolutely crucial that the government provide safe and free transportation for these women. If white women in the suburbs were experiencing the same fate, Christy Clark’s government would be moving heaven and earth to stop the disappearances.
But because they are Aboriginal women, far from major populations, they seem expendable. Mr. Oppal suggested an easy solution, the government ignores it, and women continue to disappear. Doesn’t that make the government culpable?
Nathaniel Poole,
Victoria, B.C.
