By Matthew Visser according to a recent report from the Canadian Centre for Policy fou know that something is Alternatives, fracking is slowly Yr wrong when a person can becoming the largest contributor to take a match to their tap water greenhouse gas emissions to date. and light it on fire—but this may be | Greenhouse gas emissions could more and more common in areas as double by 2020, if gas drilling in close as northern British Columbia northeastern BC continues at the due to a controversial new resource current rate. extraction method called fracking. Though fracking-friendly energy Hydraulic fracturing, or companies claim they are able to “fracking,” occurs when wells are capture all the used, dirty, chemical- dug deep into the Earth’s crust to filled water and store it in massive Are you fracking kidding me? Hydraulic fracturing sparks environmental questions reach thick layers of shale—a type of __ pools, they are yet to prove this with sedimentary rock rich with natural certainty. How can they promise this resources. Drills are then injected when the water has to first travel into and travel through the shale through ground water—water that for over a mile. When the drill has me, and you, and everyone else gone far enough, thousands of tons drinks, bathes in, washes dishes in, of fresh water, sand, and chemicals and cooks with? are pumped down into the pipe Farmers all over North America from the surface at high-pressure. in areas where fracking is happening When this pressurized fluid reaches —_ may also be feeling pressure because the end of the the fracking wells too; they have a happening less than a twenty-hour irty-year shelf life and, asthe years drive from Vancouver and, scarier a, , pass, they will require more water still, our Premier Christy Clark to properly tap the shale gas below supports it. “It is time to show properly. Go figure. everyone how safely this business While fracking technology is done. The province feels very is certainly profitable, many strongly that fracking is safely environmentalists and citizens are regulated in British Columbia,” concerned about how destructive Clark recently said. fracking could be for the future. Take But how can this be? How on for example some of the chemicals Earth can Clark endorse fracking that are released from the fracking when it could hold massive process and brought to the surface: environmental repercussions? methanol, hydrochloric acid, ethanol, _ Perhaps Clark is just thinking about and radium-226 (high levels of the economy and the jobs that can be radium-226 could kill human beings, created with more fracking projects as well as wildlife). Additionally, and more natural resources... but what will happen if they don’t raise a finger to question the kind of damage that fracking is doing to their (our) province and to us, the voters? Inevitably, the government with come up with some bullshit excuse about how we will no longer be needing to get natural gas from other countries around the world—that fracking will employ thousands of Canadians, give a boost to the ever- tipsy economy, raise the dollar and international relations with, let’s say, China for example, and help out the small towns located around the wells. But is a job worth peoples’ health and the environment? I can guess the CEOs of the big resource companies don’t care—they’re interested in the money. I believe that the environment will be hit hard from fracking, causing a growing dependency on large amounts of water, power, and gas for the trucks to transport the water and methane gas to and from wells, as well as the resources needed if a spill were to occur. By rapidly using renewable resources, we are slowly killing the planet—fracking is just another way for rich people to get richer, and for pipe, it is forced people to find another through small “While fracking technology is certainly profitable, many easy heat source to not holes in the shale, environmentalists and citizens are concerned about how only keep warm, but use thus fracturing destructive fracking could be for the future. Take for example up quickly. When will the rock. When some of the chemicals that are released from the fracking humankind finally see the shale, process and brought to the surface: methanol, hydrochloric acid, _—hat finding new ways consequently, ethanol, and radium-226 (high levels of radium-226 could kill to tap into what is left cracks and breaks human beings, as well as wildlife).” of our non-renewable apart, the methane ~ resources has got to and resources stop? found in the The problem is shale are released and travel back to _ of this process. Farmers need to use that the people who have any real the surface with the water that was ground water to feed their animals, power to do something about it, forced into it. their plant life, and their families the government, simply don’t do Natural gas found in shale is but, sadly, the farmer is becoming anything and it comes down to the plentiful in British Columbia, making _ a forgotten way of life with bog regular people, who will sooner than our province a prime target for a companies buying out farmers for later be affected, to do something billion-dollar fracking industry their land that just happens to be about it. I don’t know about you, but including companies like Trican sitting on top of shale gas. I guess I don’t want to bathe in chemicals Well Service and Precision Drilling. Safeway and Costco can just feed and drink methane. There are over 8,000 active fracking us more “enhanced” fruits and wells in BC, with millions of gallons vegetables and meat products. Who of fresh water being used to pump needs organic foods anyway? FRACKING BASICS in the wells pipes. There’s a catch to The scary thing is, fracking is * Fracking extracts natural gas by injecting pressurized water into shale rock formations. * A fluid mixture of water and chemicals is injected under high pressure deep underground. ¢ This creates or widens fissures in the rock. ¢ Sand or other solids are then pumped in to keep the fissures propped open. * Natural gas and oil is then released.