OPINION: The man doth protest too much, methinks. It takes one little innocuous news story by a Witt journalism student about fracking and, as fast as you can say Halliburton, in strides the industry's boss.
John Pfahlert, executive officer of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association, via his Letter to the Editor (Monday, 18 July) paternalistically assures Taranaki residents that the industry does "everything possible" to ensure groundwater is adequately protected. Does that fill you with confidence? Not me.
I have developed a keen interest in fracking and its ongoing impacts around the world. It's been happening in Taranaki for years but is now on the rise due to a pressing need to extract harder-to-get fossil fuels – even if such extraction necessitates much riskier methods of doing so.
Fracking (short for hydraulic fracturing) is a drilling technique which involves injecting a multitude of toxic chemicals, sand, and vast amounts of water under high pressure directly into the ground to release natural gas in shale deposits by shattering them. This cocktail of toxins and sediment, along with any natural gas released, has regularly been documented around the world as leaking to the surface and entering rivers and groundwater.
Fracking was banned by France in May this year while a moratorium is currently in place in South Africa, Quebec, New South Wales, New York State, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In some cases this halt has occurred because of serious accidents and/or unexplained occurrence of seismic activity but, in all cases, the public pressure has been vocal.
John Pfahlert only makes mention of Britain in his letter presumably because a UK parliamentary committee recently rejected a moratorium and concluded that there was "no evidence that fracking poses any risks to water aquifers provided the wells are constructed properly". What he failed to mention was that the committee also recommended that the UK's Environment Agency should force companies to declare the "type, concentration and volume of all chemicals added to the hydraulic fracturing fluid" so they can be detected in water supplies should any leakage occur.
You mean the UK government doesn't even know what chemicals are used in the process, yet still determined fracking as safe? You bet. Is it more transparent in New Zealand? No, it's not.
When Climate Justice Taranaki asked the Taranaki Regional Council if they knew what chemicals were being used they were referred to the Ministry of Economic Development. TRC's resource management director, Fred McLay, came up with what has to make the shortlist for classic quote of the year.
He said TRC were only concerned about what came out of the wells, not what went in.
The ministry put it straight back on TRC saying it was actually their responsibility to answer the question and it took an Official Information Act request before TRC fronted – albeit it with sparse information.
CEO Basil Chamberlain confirmed 10 chemicals used in a recent frack job in the region – all of which, when put under even mild scrutiny, make sobering reading. He also confirmed that TRC require no resource consents for fracking.
He says that's because, unlike overseas practices, Taranaki's fracking occurs in oil and gas reservoirs between about 2500 and 4500 metres below the land surface. Potable ground water resources in the region are about 600 metres and above.
However, TAG Oil has confirmed that at the Cheal site, near Stratford, they are drilling at considerably shallower depths of between 1400 and 1800 metres. TAG also says the rock can fracture up to 460 metres in either direction during the process.
Mr Chamberlain's letter mentions that TRC regulates the discharge of drilling and other oil industry waste including fracking fluids, which are returned to the surface. The disposal method referred to is disarmingly called "landfarming". A number of landfarms are operating in this region. TRC's own monitoring reports non-compliance and warnings in the case of one near Inglewood. Infractions include the disposing of drill waste within six metres of a waterway, substandard holding pond construction resulting in contamination with hydrocarbons of a stream via an underground spring, soil which was shown to contain barium levels double the Canadian guidelines that TRC use as their benchmark, and unexplained increased levels of chloride, nitrate and barium in the groundwater. They also note that barium is a "contaminant of concern". No kidding.
Despite this, TRC concludes that operation has "achieved a good level of compliance with ... resource consents". TRC is the organisation we entrust with protecting our environment and the onus is on them to take a stronger line when it comes to breaches of either their permitted standards or consent conditions. Not that fracking even requires a consent, of course, and consents required for the disposal of the drill waste are invariably processed as "non-notified", meaning no public input or scrutiny.
Furthermore, if TRC and Mr Pfahlert truly believe that this controversial industry will continue to have the easy run in Taranaki that it's so far enjoyed, I'm picking they will be mistaken. The raised voices and activism won't just come via the unfairly labelled "fringe groups" but, following in the footsteps of the rest of the world, from ordinary New Zealanders saying enough.
RACHEL STEWART Taranaki Daily News
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/opinion/5332967/Editorial-A-fracking-scandal-on-our-back-doorstep
Copies of landfarm monitoring reports can be found on TRC's website at trc.govt.nz/oil-and-gas-compliance-monitoring-reports/#oil. A copy of TRC's OIA response can be found here at climatejusticetaranaki.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/trc-response-to-oia-request-re-fracking-16jun11.pdf.
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