Council of Canadians | Michael Riordon

With remarkable foresight, in March an NDP member of the Ontario legislature, Peter Tabuns, introduced a bill (proposed law) to ban fracking in Ontario. (Fracking = hydraulic fracturing of the earth’s crust for gas and oil.)

With remarkable stupidity, the ruling Liberal government immediately denied any need for such a bill. There is no fracking yet in Ontario, said Natural Resources Minister Bill Mauro, so there is no need for a ban. More detail here.

Without a ban, the door stays wide open. Wherever the door is open, oil and gas corporations walk right in and start drilling. And wherever frackers drill, disaster follows. Ask people on what’s left of the ground in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, the Dakotas, south England…

Fracking consumes and poisons millions of litres of fresh water – for every well. The drillers inject a toxic brew of chemicals under high pressure to smash underground shale and force oil and gas to the surface. Fracking operations leak vast quantities of methane, a devastating greenhouse gas. They also set off earthquake epidemics where such incidents have been rare. And then there are the pipelines to transport the gas/oil to refineries and ports, and with pipelines, spills and explosions.

Result: Immense profit for a few, incalculable harm for the rest of us and the earth.

Worldwide, as soon as people become informed about fracking, resistance grows rapidly, and people have won government bans and moratoria in many municipalities, provinces, states and countries. Check here for an up-to-date list.

Meanwhile in Ontario, the door – our door, by the way – remains wide open.

In a 2014 poll, 75% of Ontarians supported a moratorium on fracking. As Peter Tabuns understands, the time to close the door is now, before it’s too late.

The bill to ban fracking is scheduled to come to a vote on May 7, a week from now. Send a message to Premier Wynne, via a new email campaign from the Council of Canadians: Ban fracking in Ontario. Close the door now.

The underground story on fracking and the growing resistance is here, inside Bold Scientists. Scroll down to chapter 10, The unsolved problem.

Tar sands oil is a cumulative disaster at every stage: extraction, processing, transport, refining, and end uses that dump incalculable amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

But the oil industry and its government backers are hell bent on getting their dirty plunder to port, for shipment overseas to countries where they can get a higher price.

Canada-Oil Train Derailment

Lac-Mégantic oil train disaster, July 26, 2014. Photo: Boston Herald.

There is no safe transport method. Oil trains leak, derail and explode, oil pipelines leak and burst with shocking frequency.

A well-oiled corporate/government PR machine relentlessly denies the overwhelming risks, even after they’re proven by bitter experience. Fortunately for all of us, people living along the routes are onto these lies, and organizing to block the dangerous traffic.

These two crucial initiatives need and deserve support:

* The Enbridge corporation is pushing to activate the notorious Line 9 through southern Ontario and Quebec. If they succeed, within the next few weeks this aging, vulnerable pipeline could be pumping heavy oil under pressure through a densely populated region laced with vital freshwater sources. Citizens groups along the way are working hard to stop it.

In June, 2014, the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation launched a legal challenge to the National Energy Board’s approval* of Line 9, on the grounds that constitutional obligations for consultation and accommodation of Aboriginal rights had not been met. (*The NEB pretends to be independent, but the federal government has effectively stacked it with oil/gas industry supporters.)

The Chippewa challenge is yet to be heard in court, but a public petition in support of it is gathering momentum. Add your voice here: http://you.leadnow.ca/petitions/demand-the-neb-respect-indigenous-rights-sign-to-support-chippewas-of-the-thames-first-nation.

And:

* Now the St. Lawrence River in eastern Canada is also being turned into a transport route for tar sands oil, one of the world’s dirtiest fuels. On September 24, the Suncor corporation shipped the first ever vessel of heavy crude down the St. Lawrence River from a port east of Montreal, bound for Italy. A second vessel was stopped recently on the St. Lawrence and temporarily blocked from departing for safety reasons.

The St. Lawrence River is the second longest river in Canada, flowing from the Great Lakes into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way it provides drinking water to millions of people. The river includes four areas designated under the UN Convention of Wetlands of International Importance. The Gulf is the world’s largest estuary, bordering five of 10 Canadian provinces.

All of this faces imminent, irreversible threat. The oil corporations plan to send 20 to 30 vessels loaded with dirty crude down the river each year.

The Council of Canadians is pressing federal elected representatives to stop tar sands oil shipments in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin. Add your voice here: http://canadians.org/action/tar-sands-oil-shipments-st-lawrence-river-no-way.

Delve into the long struggle to defend the St Lawrence with Henry Lickers, Seneca First Nation biologist at Akwesasne, an island in the middle of the living river: When the river roared, chapter 1, Bold Scientists. Read an excerpt here: http://naturesciencepower.wordpress.com/inside-bold-scientists/excerpts/.

Michael Riordon

the view from where I live

Tag Archives: Council of Canadians

Frack off!

Stop! Dirty oil on the move