“… Are the Yukon Legislative Assembly and its select committee (“the committee”) willing to understand that fracking is not safe and that regulations, no matter how excellent, will not make it so?
Out of the eight presenters set for last Friday and Saturday at the legislature (Google: yukon legislature frack committee, then click on: schedules…), was there one who lectured on no hydraulic fracturing?
Recently at the University of Calgary, Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, who has taught fracture mechanics at Cornell University for 37 years (Google: Ingraffea physicians engineers 1147), lectured on hydraulic fracturing. He said: “Don’t allow it if is not already happening in your region…. The threats to groundwater and exacerbation to climate change due to chronic methane leaks are just too serious.”
For areas like B.C., where in 2007 the world’s first high-intensity fracks from multi-well pads took place (Google: koop report be encana cabin), Dr. Ingraffea recommended ramping fracking down (google: Tyee fracking shale gas ingraffea).
His work was some of the evidence making three provinces (Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec) realize that brute force, unconventional oil and gas fracking defies environmental and public health regulation and lacks economic feasibility. These realizations made national news.
Why did the committee not invite elected officials from these provinces to present in the Yukon legislature and be available for questions from the public?
The Yukon government and committee chair Patti McLeod are deceiving the public by only inviting speakers journeying on a oneway ticket via extreme oil and gas to an economic, environmental and health graveyard.
It’s becoming more and more clear that the committee’s review process is rigged.
There’s not one formal presentation on alternatives to fracking.
The Yukon does not have existing oil and gas industry infrastructure other than two completed wells and shell companies.
In other jurisdictions with extensive existing infrastructure, the promised job creation, prosperity and oil and gas production levels are questionable.
A new report by David Hughes, a geologist and three-decade veteran with the Geological Survey of Canada, is easily useable and an important read for all. (Google: Ing reality check).
Companies take speculator subsidies (Google: fossil fuel subsidies $lt,reports say) while damages and harm are paid by the public and landowners.
Residents, the council and others of Lethbridge, Alta., are fighting to keep drilling out because of the significant risks beyond certain harms (Google: no drilling Lethbridge).
Why is the committee listening twice to two professors – Bernard Mayer and Rick Chalatumyk from Alberta universities that receive millions in funding from oil and gas companies (Google: emst encana groundwater association California 21).
As a specific example, Rick Chalatumyk, in and outside of his university post, works affiliated to the Quest carbon capture project of Royal Dutch Shell that received 865′ milbon from the federal and Alberta governments.
As a paid panel member of the oil and gas lobby and consulting firm DNV, Rick approved the Quest carbon storage site.
He also heads the international technical committee that provides oil and gas industry-friendly carbon capture standards.
Problems with carbon capture projects have surfaced (Google: first certificate co2 storage. Google: carbon capture journal chalatumyk.pdf. Google: chalatumyk shell. Google: carbon capture storage leaks).
Instead of listening to world-renowned geochemist Dr. Karlis Muehlenbachs, who co-authored a peer-reviewed paper documenting numerous cases of groundwater contamination in Alberta frack fields (Google: fingerpintrng of gas contaminating groundwater) and warns of the risks from fracking (Google: fracking contamination expert), the committee listens to the Pembina Institute and Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).
Pembina is a synergized group (Google: synergy pembina). Synergy is funded by the oil and gas industry and Pembina promotes regulations and the tired old story that natural gas is clean.
Prior to the committee visiting Alberta, Yukoners Concerned About Petroleum Exploration/Development publicly exposed the profracking bias planned.
With extremely short notice, Jessica Ernst was asked to arrange an informal meeting with a few harmed Albertans and one or two committee members. As it turns out, likely because of the bad publicity, all members attended.
Two of the harmed who presented were Diana Daunheimer (Google: ernst encana daunheimers. Google: hydraulic fracking challenged 2013) and Kimberly Mildenstein (Google: ernst encana mildenstein eagle hill. Google: fracking Canada no duty of care).
Both are mothers. They travelled on their own time and costs; Diana with her children because her husband was away.
Their names are not listed on the committee website even though both advised that their names could be made public with Rob Schwartz and the Campbells, and their contact information given to the media.
It is unconscionable that the committee is censoring two Alberta mothers harmed by fracking!
Peer-reviewed studies warn of the health risks from fracking (Google: the endocrine disruption exchange mr gowen. (Google: human health unconventional natural gas resources), and it appears that these are unfolding as warned.
The record shows the destructive frack impacts do not vary with nuance in regulation, geography, geology, depth or jurisdiction (Google: failures for wells used for injection in Canada).
They follow a rock-hard reality of partial hydrocarbon release that locks in a fiend of increasing underground pulverization and intermingling with groundwater of injected and naturally occurring toxins; not a decrease of harm and emissions, as the promise of regulations suggests.
In jurisdictions where fracking unconventionals is taking place,regulators are deregulating while publicly promising the opposite.
Politicians, reportedly secretly with the help of oil and gas companies, write new laws and omnibus-budget bills destroying water, environment, health and rights protections to enable the devastation and pollution that are inevitable with fracking (Google: fracking Canada ernstclause).
We ask that Ms. McLeod and her committee take the economical and practical way: wait and watch the programmed failure happen else where (Google: frack hits). This requires no remediation.
And we ask that the committee and Yukoners read some of the damning peer-reviewed published evidence (Google: fracking sites tied to hormone disruptors) and expand the Whitehorse Trough moratorium territory-wide as fourth in the country.
Let the Yukon develop and become truly sustainable; keep unconventional oil and gas out until lasting protection for community and nature has been discovered and legally put in place.
We challenge the committee to prove us wrong.
An honest process would not be predictable, predetermined and unbalanced with biased single-mind-edness. …”
Jessica Ernst, Rosebud Alberta
Jacqueline Vigneux Whitehorse Yukon
Peter Becker Whitehorse Yukon
(Letter sent to the Whitehorse Star last Monday night and published today, Feb. 05,2014 and posted here with permission of the authors)
Fracking testimony underway at Yukon Legislature
CBC News Posted: Jan 31, 2014 1:31 PM CT Last Updated: Jan 31, 2014 9:01 PM CT
Anti-fracking protesters greet Yukon legislature
CBC News Posted: Oct 31, 2013 2:18 PM CT Last Updated: Oct 31, 2013 3:36 PM CT
Petitioned Currie Dixon
Yukon Government: Ban Hydraulic Fracturing in the Yukon Territory
Fracking fears founded
Wednesday April 17, 2013
“The Yukon Conservation Society must disagree with the Yukon News editorial from Friday, April 5 entitled “Fracking is a foregone conclusion.”…”
Anne Middler, YCS Energy Coordinator
———- CORRECTION ———-
From: Julia Kilpatrick <[email protected]>
Date: 6 May 2014 08:10
Subject: Re: your post on rabble
Hi George, Following up on our previous correspondence related to your post here: https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/mediamentor/2014/02/yukon-government-setting-fracked-territory
The piece states: “Pembina is a synergized group (Google: synergy pembina). Synergy is funded by the oil and gas industry and Pembina promotes regulations and the tired old story that natural gas is clean.”
The Pembina Institute is not a member of Synergy Alberta and we do not “promote” natural gas as a clean energy source. There is ample research publicly available on our website that outlines our perspective on natural gas and a variety of concerns we have with the development of this resource, ranging from climate-related issues, to impacts on water and local communities.
At the time of publication, it appears the Synergy Alberta website listed the Pembina Institute as a member; this was incorrect and I have since been in contact with the site’s owners to have the error corrected.
If you are opposed to changing the inaccuracies in the original text, please do post this email as a correction to your piece. Best regards, Julia
Julia Kilpatrick Communications Director | Pembina Institute www.pembina.org
“YUKON 1953 undated license plate before tab addition” Image via Flickr by Jerry “Woody” woody1778a Member since 2007
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