So in our lovely home province of New Brunswick, a rural, sparsely populated corner of the world, we have a fight brewing.
As a small province with a small pop base (700,000), our gov't is struggling to make ends meet, with a $1billion debt. We have had several attempts at promoting growth in our business sector through innovation attraction, low taxes and promotion of our low cost of doing business. All have had limited amounts of success, and our provincial debt continues to grow.
Now we discover that we may have significant reserves of shale gas in our midst. This type of hydrocarbon has long been know about, but until recently was too expensive to extract. Technology and high gas prices have conspired to make shale gas a feasible resource, and companies have taken notice of New Brunswick and have decided the potential is good enough that it is worth exploring, and one company in particular has committed to spend 3 years doing exploration work.
As we have seen from media reports in other jurisdictions where shale gas has been discovered and is being extracted, the method used to extract, hydro-fracking, has become controversial. Never mind that this extraction technique has been used for 80 years with relatively low incidents of unexpected pollution, and that the oil and gas industry is one of the safest and most regulated in the world; the media has helped whip people into a panic over this technique based on some acusations in the states that the process is responsible for contaminating water tables.
So we have a new natural resource industry that could help balance the books for our government, and lead to lower taxes, better public services such as education and health care, and thus a better future for NB. That is one side of the coin.
The other side of the coin is the risk that comes with any natural resource extraction, potential pollution of the environment. The government is trying to put into place rules and regulations to protect the water supply of citizens and put in place funding to help mitigate any issues that may arise; the company doing the extraction will be required to set aside a pot of money to pay for any damage they cause. But many don't find this is good enough, they want a ban on the process; which would effectively remove the potential for any revenue from this resource.
The public is already in a panic over the hydrofracking process, even though we don't even know if there is enough gas to extract yet. It has gotten to to point where the company doing exploration has had equipement stolen, trucks blockaded, and even employees assaulted.
I agree that the process needs to be regulated, and all the contingencies examined. But the facts need to be publicized; hydrofracking has been done all over the world and in many different environments for over 80 years. And oil companies are not the evil, environment killing monsters that many would have you believe. I have worked with several large and small oil companies, and know for a fact that their safety and environmental protection policies are very stringent. These companies do not want destroy people's drinking water any more than people want it destroyed. If for no other reason than it is bad for business; it is expensive to clean up, and very bad PR.
It sickens me that a law abiding company doing business with all required rules and regulations, is being attacked in such a way that they had to stop work. If someone wants to protest against hydrofracking, focus the protest on the people who decide if it should happen or not...the government!
The province of NB gets a large majority of its electricity from coal power plants; this is the dirtiest way to get power and these plans are doing alot more damage to the environment than hydrofracking ever will...but I don't see anyone blockading NB Power vehicles or assaulting their employees.
I am pretty sure the majority of those living in Alberta and reaping the benefits of the oil sands projects are happy with their non-existing taxes and phenomenal public services.
Lets at least keep the fight clean folks...leave the law abiding companies out of the fight.
And off the soap box he steps....
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