The results of our fracking water use court case are in…
October 17, 2014
Earlier this year we took the BC government to court, seeking to force them to apply their own laws on water use for fracking. When we looked at all of the short-term water permits being issued to gas companies, it was clear that nobody in the government was watching just how much precious water we were losing to this hazardous activity.
Sadly, the court ruled that under BC’s water laws, the oil and gas industry – and other major industrial users – do not require a water licence for long term access to the province’s freshwater resources.
Although it’s disappointing that the case was not decided in our favour, we feel that it brought attention to an important issue that has slipped underneath our collective radar in recent years. The case certainly caught the attention of provincial decision-makers – but their response wasn’t the one we’d hoped for.
In the days before our court hearing, the BC government announced it was changing the law to explicitly make it legal for provincial agencies to continue with the exact activity we were alleging was unlawful! The province’s new Water Sustainability Act (WSA), we are told, will now contain a provision allowing for the granting of back-to-back short-term water permits for industrial users like fracking companies.
This means that instead of having to go through the more stringent process of applying for a full water licence, companies can rely on short-term permits to use massive amounts of BC’s freshwater.
The message this sends to British Columbians is that the gas industry gets what it wants, and communities better not get in the way! But at a time when the rest of us are trying to tackle the climate crisis, the last thing the BC government should be doing is opening up our vital freshwater supply to the gas industry, and enabling them to frack for more gas.
Fracking causes large amounts of methane to escape into the atmosphere, which has a serious impact on our climate. In BC, the biggest driver of climate change over the next 10 years will be the massive new liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, which will require up to 40,000 new fracked gas wells for just 5 of the 10 or more proposed LNG terminals.
If you have not done so already, please add your name to our petition to stop fracking in BC. Our climate, our freshwater, and our communities simply cannot take the impact of 40,000 new fracked gas wells. Please join us in building a wall of opposition against fracking and the LNG industry that it will drive!
