Dear Editor:
At a time when we ought to be working toward reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, we are seeing the largest expansion of oil and gas exploitation in history. There is a worldwide push by industry and governments to plunder Canada's energy reserves as quickly and completely as humanly possible.
Shale gas exploitation is increasing dramatically, wasting B.C.'s freshwater and threatening the natural environment of the North.
Production will nearly triple by 2025 from 4 billion cubic feet being produced per day to 11bcf per day. In the Horn River Basin water consumption has jumped from just over 2 million cubic meters in 2009 to nearly 7 million cubic meters in 2011. Wells are using more water per frac, and being fracked more often over longer horizontal distances. The consequences for the environment are irreversible.
According to the provincial government, only 15 per cent of our current production is consumed in B.C.
By 2025, our domestic consumption of natural gas will fall to less than six per cent while freshwater usage will skyrocket. Both the B.C. NDP and the Liberals are supportive of this expansion of the shale gas industry and the construction of a natural gas pipeline to the coast. While the B.C. NDP opposes the construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline, by supporting the construction of a natural gas pipeline across the north, they will ultimately be making it easier in the future for a parallel bitumin pipeline to be constructed along the same right-of-way.
Rick McGowan, Burnaby Municipal Greens
