CBM extraction is bad news for farmers as well as residents
Although farmers receive a modest payment for allowing drilling companies onto their land, the impacts on their livelihoods will be greater than the payment. In the Dudleston area it was a company called Composite Energy that was telling farmers that they would be helping the environment and the country by allowing this. Since then Dart has taken over Composite Energy and is now exercising the old agreements. This site highlights some of the risks: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/03/reproductive-problems-death-animals-exposed-fracking
Risks
Australian toxics expert Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith talking about the risks of coal bed methane (known as coal seam gas there). Highly informative and compelling viewing.
Below are some resources and research that contain scientific evidence to justify concerns about unconventional gas in relation to the environmental impact. We are currently in the process of scrutinising information relating to Dudleston and will upload our research as soon as possible.
- Cracks in the Facade – Water Contamination – Fractures can extend for 2500 ft and frequently to 1000ft, and can spread to neighbouring wells.
- Methane contamination of water, April 2011 – Shows very large increase of Methane up to 1km from active wells with concentrations high enough to be an explosive hazard. Heightened methane levels also found up to 4.5km from inactive wells.
- Fracking contribution to truck traffic – Trucking stats suggest that transportation related to fracking could account for 4.5% of US truck loads and 26% of tank loads
- Air samples reveals high emissions from fracking – Air samples near Denver suggest as much as 4% of methane may be leaking from fracking sites.
- Frac Focus – Chemical disclosure registry – Texas drilling operators will have to provide this site with details of chemicals and water used (starting Feb 2012)
- Are we fit to frack? – Policy recommendations for a robust regulatory framework for the shale gas industry in the UK written by a partnership of the AnglingTrust, the NationalTrust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Salmon & Trout Association, The Wildlife Trusts and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT)
- The Permo-Triassic Sandstone Aquifer of Shropshire – a report written by a joint programme of research by the British Geological Survey and the Environment Agency. This highlights that there is a Major Aquifer around Oswestry which is at high risk of contamination from human activities associated with agricultural practices, urbanisation, industrial processes, disposal of wastes and spillages of solvents and fuel oils.
- “2 + 2 = 0” – How Public Health England whitewashed the potential health effects of shale gas on public health – This article is a review of Paul Mobb’s recent, 95 page critical review of PHE’s report; a longer and more extensively referenced summary of that report is available in the ecolonomics journal.