THE GLENUGIE blockade has brought protesters streaming southwards from the Lismore and Richmond Valley region to support their anti-CSG Clarence Valley friends.
Up to half the estimated 300 protesters came from outside the Clarence Valley, transforming a local protest into a significant "battle" against the industry which culminated in yesterday's massive police action.
Eltham grandmother Anne Thompson (pictured) had never slept in a tent before she came to Glenugie.
Now she has four nights under her belt, plus hundreds of kilometres in her car driving back and forth for day trips during the 48-day blockade.
Mrs Thompson, 74, was up at dawn yesterday but only ate her first meal at 2pm after being forced away from the site by tactical response officers.
"I have never seen anything like this in my whole life... I've never seen so many police," she said.
What we're seeing today is this kind of symbolic show of force by the state, to come in, allocate a whole lot of tax payers' money, bring a whole lot of police for one day, bust out a blockade, and the truth is there's another 364 days in every year in which the communities will be resisting coal seam gas and we know that the full riot squad aren't going to be there every day," he says.
"We were marched for about one and a half kilometres and were pushed if we lingered."
Photo Damian Kelly
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The plan to frack around Beagle Bay is very worrying.There are underground springs throughout the area that these frackers would not have a clue about.
ReplyDeleteThere were some questions asked late last year about Woodside holding a meeting at Beagle Bay regarding access to water.Would this have had anything to do with the fracking plans?
It takes about 10 - 14 million litres of water average to frack a well.And one well may be fracced up to 20 times.That could mean 200 million litres of water for one well.An olympic swimming pool holds 2.5 million litres.
Eight olympic pools - that is a s*%#load of water.
Poisonous and possible radioactive.
And typically stored in open pits.There are no plants anywhere around here that can recycle this dangerous waste which can contain heavy metals.They can't treat it so they will have to leave it in the open pits.and people and animals can get sick just from inhaling the vapours from these pits.Do the pits dry out and the toxic dust just blows around?
And who is responsible for replacing the bore casings as they corrode and rust away?What's the average life of a bore casing under these conditions?Especially if they are using hydrochloric acid in the process.7 to 10 years before they leak?
The trouble is they dodge problems in city areas,what will anyone do up here where we are "out of site out of mind"?
And let's be honest about it,in Aboriginal country.
They will need to call in more than the Army to fix the roads afterwards,with hundreds of truckloads per well.From the rig itself to all the poisons,fuel etc.
DeleteHave heard of a lot of road damage in the US,with sometimes thousands of trucks for one well!
http://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/hydraulic_fracturing_101
ReplyDeleteHydraulic Fracturing 101 (a few excerpts)
Water Use
In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 70 to 140 billion gallons of water are used to fracture 35,000 wells in the United States each year. This is approximately the annual water consumption of 40 to 80 cities each with a population of 50,000. Fracture treatments in coalbed methane wells use from 50,000 to 350,000 gallons of water per well, while deeper horizontal shale wells can use anywhere from 2 to 10 million gallons of water to fracture a single well. The extraction of so much water for fracking has raised concerns about the ecological impacts to aquatic resources, as well as dewatering of drinking water aquifers.
It has been estimated that the transportation of a million gallons of water (fresh or waste water) requires 200 truck trips. Thus, not only does water used for hydraulic fracturing deplete fresh water supplies and impact aquatic habitat, the transportation of so much water also creates localized air quality, safety and road repair issues.
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Sand and Proppants
Conventional oil and gas wells use, on average, 300,000 pounds of proppant, coalbed fracture treatments use anywhere from 75,000 to 320,000 pounds of proppant and shale gas wells can use more than 4 million pounds of proppant per well.
Frac sand mines are springing up across the country, from Wisconsin to Texas, bringing with them their own set of impacts. Mining sand for proppant use generates its own range of impacts, including water consumption and air emissions, as well as potential health problems related to crystalline silica.
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Toxic Chemicals
In addition to large volumes of water, a variety of chemicals are used in hydraulic fracturing fluids. The oil and gas industry and trade groups are quick to point out that chemicals typically make up just 0.5 and 2.0% of the total volume of the fracturing fluid. When millions of gallons of water are being used, however, the amount of chemicals per fracking operation is very large. For example, a four million gallon fracturing operation would use from 80 to 330 tons of chemicals.[1]
As part of New York State’s Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) related to Horizontal Drilling and High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing in the Marcellus Shale, the Department of Environmental Conservation complied a list of chemicals and additives used during hydraulic fracturing. The table below provides examples of various types of hydraulic fracturing additives proposed for use in New York. Chemicals in brackets [ ] have not been proposed for use in the state, but are known to be used in other states or shale formations.
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WORTH NOTING THAT FIGURE : 80 TO 330 TONNES OF CHEMICALS IN ONE WELL FRACK !
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Many fracturing fluid chemicals are known to be toxic to humans and wildlife, and several are known to cause cancer. Potentially toxic substances include petroleum distillates such as kerosene and diesel fuel (which contain benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene and other chemicals); polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; methanol; formaldehyde; ethylene glycol; glycol ethers; hydrochloric acid; and sodium hydroxide.
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Other chemicals, such as 1,2-Dichloroethane are volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Volatile organic constituents have been shown to be present in fracturing fluid flowback wastes at levels that exceed drinking water standards.
VOCs not only pose a health concern while in the water, the volatile nature of the constituents means that they can also easily enter the air. According to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Healthy Environments and Communities, organic compounds brought to the surface in the fracturing flowback or produced water often go into open impoundments (frac ponds), where the volatile organic chemicals can offgas into the air.
When companies have an excess of unused hydraulic fracturing fluids, they either use them at another job or dispose of them.