The BC Natural Gas industry is in the news. My first response was great, natural gas is clean burning. That is a good thing. However, the problem appears to be with fracking. I didn't realize they used fracking to mine for natural gas as well. That is a concern.
The concern with fracking is A) the sheer volume of water used and more importantly B) the huge amount of toxic chemicals put into the water to make fracking fluid. That is indeed a colossal concern. Perhaps someone can explain the science of fracking to me. Why on earth do they need to use that many different toxic chemicals for it to work? What would happen if you left out the uranium and the formaldehyde? Would it not work? Would it still work just not be as efficient?
The huge tailing ponds of toxic water from mining and tar sands oil is a huge concern. It's just not responsible. If the same toxic tailing ponds are created with fracking natural gas then we have to figure out a way to mine it without creating so much toxic waste. Burning natural gas is much cleaner than burning coal or other fossil fuels. Let's figure out a way to fix this.
Update: Speaking of corporate media, today the Vancouver Province contracted out an editorial to Canada's biggest NeoCon Gwyn Morgan. In the editorial Gwyn complains "The two Atlantic Provinces have joined Quebec in shunning a technology that has one of the most impressive industrial safety records ever compiled. In the United States, where some 1.2 million wells have been hydraulically fractured over the past 60 years, the Bureau of Land Management and the Environmental Protection Agency have found no supportable evidence of fracture-induced water contamination."
If this was a court document he would be charged with perjury but no, this isn't a court document. Lying to the media is seen as good business. The primary concern with fracking is all the toxic chemicals that are put into huge volumes of water to make fracking fluid. To claim there is no water contamination is a bold faced lie. Printing that lie in the paper is complete irresponsibility.
Gwyn Morgan claims to be right wing. Gwyn Morgan claims to support a balanced budget and reduced taxes. Yet he does the opposite. Tell us how he got the sweetheart contract for the Evergreen line for SNCL when he was acting CEO after they were charged with massive fraud in Quebec? The World Bank has banned SNCL from World Bank projects for the next 10 years so we give them billions of tax dollars for a mismanaged Translink project and they still want more money to line their pockets. From fracking to SNC-Lavalin.
Translink runs a billion dollar a year deficit that taxpayers pay through an extra regional ten cents a litre gas tax above and beyond federal and provincial gas tax. There is nothing fiscally responsible about that. Gwyn Morgan was chairman of SNC-Lavalin Inc for six years. The same company that was up to their eyeballs in fraud. Arthur Porter is in jail in Panama waiting extradition. Morgan claimed "the need to stay beyond my original term became clear in early 2012, when I received a phone call during a trip to Hong Kong, where I was attending board meetings of HSBC Holdings PLC." Oh HSBC, the same bank that was caught laundering money for the Mexican cartel. I see.