Opinion

The Wild West and Dysfunctional BC Politics

Fracking and sour gas deserve debate, but get cartoon treatment from the Clark government.

By Ben Parfitt, 15 Jun 2011, TheTyee.ca

Yosemite Sam

Yehaw! There's gas in them thar hills.

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Anyone wanting to see just how dysfunctional politics in B.C. has become should check out Bob Simpson's recent Private Members' statement in the provincial legislature.

For seven minutes Simpson, member of the legislative assembly for Cariboo North and one of two Independent MLAs, spoke about why he and fellow Independent Vicki Huntington (Delta South), had called on Premier Christy Clark to appoint a special committee of the Legislature to investigate B.C.'s ballooning unconventional gas production and its public policy implications.

It was an impressive performance, given the slightly more than seven minutes that Simpson had to marshal his arguments. You can watch it all here on a video clip. Look in particular for Simpson's characterization of B.C.'s rapidly expanding unconventional gas production as the Wild West of resource extraction, and how that comment may have unhinged his Liberal colleague from across the carpeted divide. But I digress.

Private members' statements are an opportunity made available to all MLAs and take place on Monday mornings when the legislature is in session (a rare event the past few years). Statements fall outside of normal government business and are meant to be non-partisan in nature. But just as there's the Wild West of resource extraction there's the Wild West of B.C. politics.

Array of critical concerns

During his statement, Simpson touched on a wide array of controversies swirling around B.C.'s accelerating unconventional gas drilling as reasons why he and Huntington (along with a number of environmental organizations, First Nations, local citizens' groups in the energy-rich northeast corner of the province and others including the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) believed that convening a special legislative committee made good public policy sense:

Issues of public health and safety, in particular the health and safety risks associated with uncontrolled sour gas releases.

The escalating volumes of water, sand and toxins being pressure-pumped underground during hydraulic fracturing or fracking operations, a stimulation technique now used to encourage maximum gas flows at about half of all natural gas wells drilled in British Columbia.

Government subsidization of natural gas industry activities at a time of low gas prices.

And who, if anyone, is tracking the cumulative impacts on land and water resources as B.C.'s unconventional gas resources are developed.

Pimm's performance

Reports from government funded bodies showing that gas produced from unconventional shale formations will result in so many greenhouse gas emissions that the province will be incapable of meeting its legislatively mandated GHG emissions reduction targets and, in fact, court increases in said emissions of 10 per cent or more.

"British Columbia has a long history of natural resource exploitation. The original founding of this province was fur, forests and fish. The neck of the woods I come from, was the gold rush. And if history dictates anything to us it states that we need to be much more careful in how we use our natural resources," Simpson said.

It was then that he suggested that the escalating development of B.C.'s unconventional gas resources might properly be called the new Wild West of resource exploitation, a phrase, he was at pains to point out that he had not coined, but that he and other fellow MLAs on the legislative finance committee had heard applied to the Peace region's natural gas plays on two separate occasions when the committee traveled there.

And then it was time for the Wild West's Liberal MLA, Pat Pimm, to present his, er, reasoned response. Here's some of what the MLA for Peace River North had to say. Believe me when I say it was not the first or last of his embarrassing utterances.

"Why has the member opposite all of a sudden decided to take an interest in worrying about the great folks of northeastern B.C.? I mean, I'm happy you are, but, uh, I think that's why we have 85 MLAs. And I think I can look after my needs in that neighbourhood quite well. I'd also like to ask the member opposite if he's going to be seeking election in northeastern B.C. next time around, or if he would be content to try and represent his own constituents in the Cariboo South, or Cariboo North, rather. And, ah, last time I checked they certainly could use a little help in that area. And I think he should be dedicating his time to their concerns instead of grandstanding in this House about the northeastern B.C."

It was then that Deputy Speaker Dawn Black reminded Pimm that his Get-out-of-Dodge rhetoric was inappropriate for the moment at hand and directed the MLA to address his comments to her, something that Pimm, flashing a saccharine smile, undertook to do but evidently had occasional trouble pulling off.

Needed: a responsible approach

All and all, it was a shocking performance by one of Sheriff Clark's junior deputies. All the more so because as anyone familiar with unconventional gas developments knows, policies in jurisdictions such as Quebec and New York State are being driven by mounting public fears over the environmental, health and safety and economic damage caused by fracking operations in other Canadian provinces and U.S. states.

In both Quebec and New York, temporary moratoriums on unconventional gas developments were imposed, allowing time for provincial and state officials to investigate the links between fracking operations and potentially deadly gas leaks, explosions, contaminated drinking water wells and groundwater sources, and polluted streams and rivers.

As Simpson said, we can either develop natural resource policies here in B.C. in response to rising protests or our elected leaders can actually be proactive, examine the issues and shape or reshape provincial policies accordingly.

If Sheriff Clark has any sense, she'll lasso Simpson and Huntington and deputize them to be on a special task force to launch a preliminary investigation into the issues raised by the two Independent MLAs. In the meantime, she might want to send her junior deputy, Mr. Pimm, on a long horse ride out to the outer extremities of the range in his beloved northeast B.C.

Along the way, Pimm could water his steed at any one of the numerous pits dug into the earth and each filled with 10 or more Olympic swimming pool's worth of water. The pits were excavated by natural gas companies and then filled with water withdrawn from rivers, lakes and streams; water now destined for pressure-pumping deep underground at fracking operations. A word of warning, though. Avoid the nearby wastewater pits. Too much salt, sand and chemicals there for a horse's liking. [Tyee]

Ben Parfitt, resource policy analyst at the CCPA's B.C. office, is a long-time writer on B.C.'s natural resources.

22 Comments:

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  • happy

    49 weeks ago

    Don't like fracking? Don't vote NDP

    Here is whar Parfitt had to say on the subject yesterday in the Sun.
    Funny as how when the same storyline is reprinted today in the Tyee all mention of the NDP is swept under the carpet and a heavy dose of Liberal sarcasm is inserted instead.
    Read away:

    "It seems to me that there's very little to differentiate between the NDP and Liberal positions on developing unconventional natural-gas resources," Parfitt challenged. "I'm wondering what the NDP believe should be done to ensure that those resources are developed in a manner that does not compromise water and that does not result in the province seeing its greenhouse-gas emissions ratchet up to terrible levels."

    "Good question," replied Horgan. But his answer was notably hedged, particularly on the matter of fracking. He admitted to some concerns but also contrasted this province's maturity in development of shale gas -"we've been doing this for quite a while, we're getting better at it" -with less experienced jurisdictions like Quebec, which placed a moratorium on the process.

    "I believe the best place for us to be on natural gas is to get to a market where we can get a better return, and that's where the LNG proposal we talked about earlier comes into play," said Horgan, discouraging any notion that an NDP government, with him as energy minister, would be prepared to sacrifice the steady flow of natural gas revenues to environmental concerns.

    "The risk to our coastline from LNG is insignificant; the benefit to British Columbians is quite significant. And it's our resource, so we'll get the royalties for extracting it, we'll get value added by getting it to an LNG facility, and then we'll get a better price for it in Asia."

    http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/gives+partial+answer+will+programs/4941966/story.html

  • DPL

    49 weeks ago

    I seem to recall listening

    I seem to recall listening to Horgan on the subject of fracking and he has great concerns on the subject.( and I'm no big supporter of Horgan) With the option of the two parties I do believe the NDP have greater concerns for the natural gas problems.And will work hard to reduce the risks in natural gas drilling and transporting. Sure it's sold too cheap here, so if exporting it in a safe manner is possible, let's find out and if the offshore price is much higher, sell it off shore.

  • blackie

    49 weeks ago

    no win

    This is no win for the NDP. If they adopt the Parfitt philosophy -- which reading between the lines is to match Quebec's so-called moratorium on fracking while we examine its impacts -- then the province loses a huge chunk of revenue which would otherwise go nowhere but up over the next decade and more -- especially once the LNG component kicks in.

    If the NDP offers full support for the unconventional gas industry, well it's casting its lot with Rapeandpillage Inc., selling our precious resources, ripping off the people, destroying the environment -- all that good stuff associated with greedy capitalists.

    Classic rock and hard place.

    Parfitt needs to run for office on his mantra. But that would mean having to answer for a sudden drop in government revenues as the gas industry heads elsewhere -- and I don't see him being quite so articulate on that one.

  • Ben Parfitt

    49 weeks ago

    Re: Don't Like Fracking Don't Vote NDP

    First, Happy, I find it troubling to reply to people who choose to hide behind pseudonyms. But that's an issue for another day.

    So at the risk of making you grumpy I suggest that you read my Tyee posting of June 8th, which states:

    "For years, the policies of provincial NDP and Liberal administrations alike have been squarely focused on increased exploitation of B.C.'s natural gas resources."

    It was Liberal MLA Pat Pimm, however, who responded to Bob Simpson's reasoned Private Members' statement with his bullying rhetoric, which so thoroughly discredited him and his party leadership.

    I sincerely wish that the NDP had also responded. I doubt, however, that they would have supported Simpson's call.

    Why? This is what John Horgan said in response to a question I posed to him and which aired on Voice of BC on June 9.

    Q (Parfitt): As most of us know, British Columbia is endowed with an incredibly rich natural gas resource. I’m wondering, however, what the NDP’s views are on developing that resource. It seems to me that there’s very little to differentiate between the NDP and Liberal positions on developing unconventional natural gas resources in the province. And I’m wondering what the NDP believes should be done to ensure that those resources are developed in a manner that does not compromise water and that does not result in the province seeing its greenhouse gas emissions ratchet up to terrible levels?

    A (Horgan): Very good questions from Ben. He and I have sat down and talked about these issues, mostly around the hydraulic fracturing or fracking as it’s called. It uses a great deal of water to break the rock formation – the shale formation – to release the natural gas. And that’s what’s called unconventional gas. We have an abundance of it here. Ben is right. I believe, as Jock Finlayson pointed out that if (pause) you can almost find unconventional gas in any jurisdiction in North America. Quebec, there was a bit of a gold rush there. They put a moratorium in place because they didn’t have any understanding of how you develop that industry. British Columbia is a mature gas sector. We’ve been doing this for quite a while. We’re getting better at it. It uses a great deal of water, creates toxic water as a result. There’s talk about draining, or putting a pipeline in the Williston Reservoir, which is there to hold water for electricity generation, so that they can feed the oil and gas sector in the northeast. That causes me significant concern. My colleague Rob Fleming and I have been working together to try and find a better place for us to be in the future on natural gas. But I believe the best place for us to be is to get to a market where we can get a better return. And that’s where the LNG [Liquid Natural Gas] proposal that we talked about earlier comes into play.

  • P. Markunas

    49 weeks ago

    Hurrah for Heros and Villans

    I guess every good story needs a hero and a villan. Nice to see Mr. Simpson continue in his role as hero on these pages and always fun to see the mickey taken out of Mr. Pimm.

    Blackie makes a good point in his comment above – the NDP are the meat in this sandwich - demand they campaign to expand government services (and public sector jobs) and shut down natural gas revenues at the same time. Hopefully The Tyee will shift editorial interest toward Mr. Fleming’s suggested pollution tax and avoid making fracking the do or die issue for its followers in the coming election.

    I’m no BCLiberal supporter, but as reported by the Globe and Mail on April 15th the BC Government has already confirmed a review of fracking is underway. That could have been mention in this report, but it might have taken away from the cartoon. As readers, we’ve no one to blame but ourselves for this kind of over simplification. Whether it’s the 9K daily visits to this site, or the 250k daily visits to the Vancouver Sun, or the 500k daily visits to the Globe and Mail, we’re all voting with our eyes, and our eyes are drawn to the entertainment section.

  • G West

    49 weeks ago

    Drop in revenues???

    Please, cost out the 'net' benefit from the fire sales of Natural Gas leases when one realizes that there will be NO ROYALTY payments coming to the province until after all the attendant costs of exploration, drilling and infrastructure are paid for AND including the costs of provincial roads and power lines to serve the industry.

    Revenue only means something to the bottom line if all the expenses are covered first.

    The entertainment comes from folks who think the only thing that matters is the 'chich-ching' of the cash register; real business people know that if you can't pay the bills at the end of the month, no matter how much money seems to be coming in the front door, you're out of business.

    Surely 10+ years of BCLiberal lies and bad deals should be enough to wake anyone up.

  • Cool Hand

    49 weeks ago

    The Emotional Factor

    Quote:
    Parfitt: policies in jurisdictions such as Quebec and New York State are being driven by mounting public fears

    Some differences:

    1. Unlike BC, AB, Texas, and Oklahoma, fer instance, which have been actively engaged in oil/gas drilling/production for over 60 years and have a Ministry/Department bureacracy dealing with these matters, QC and NY haven't and don't;

    2. The shale gas/tight gas plays in QC and NY are relatively shallow compared to the much deeper plays in BC/AB and the southern U.S.;

    3. The ng shale plays in QC and NY are in close proximity to a relatively large population base;

    Ergo, some folk become emotionally (versus rationally) driven.

    In that same vein, SK has a well-developed uranium mining industry and ON has a well-developed nuclear power industry. Imagine if uranium mining or nuclear power was proposed for BC?

    The same emotional reaction exhibited in QC and NY would also occur out here with no provincial experience in those fields.

  • de Falla

    49 weeks ago

    Dropped Revenues

    Look at the provincial budget and you'll find forecast revenues from natural gas of $450 million this year. It only comes from one source, natural gas extracted by use of a decades old technology called fracking.

    G. West, do tell where you'd find the revenue to replace that, remembering replacement only gets you back to zero. If you want to advance new programs, let's say poverty reduction for sake of argument, you'll need to pull even more revenue out of someone's pocket. Not that I'm opposed to that in principle, but we're talking about e real world election campaign.

  • happy

    49 weeks ago

    Parfitt

    Your previous reporting out on the fracking policies of both the NDP and Liberals is duly noted.
    So why is this article so one sided? Will you be doing an article devoted soley to the fracking policy of the NDP like this one, complete with the sarcasm (which detracts from your argument, in my opinion)
    The NDP is considered the government in waiting, thier fracking policies appear to be lockstep with the libs. Lets just say I consider it a glaring ommision.
    Second, this media is called the internet. The vast majority of posters hide behind pseudonyms just like me. If we all go away you won't have much of an audience left.
    And the reason I choose to to remain anonymous is because I value my privacy.
    Its that simple.

  • reallife

    49 weeks ago

    NEBC join Alberta?

    How about a referendum in the northeast on the question of the region joining Alberta? The people of the region do their shopping in Grande Prairie and Edmonton, do business with Calgary and vote and think the same as Albertans. I am quite certain the residents of the area would prefer to be part of Alberta and the lower mainlanders should be happy to see people like junior deputy Mr. Pimm take on a long horse ride out to the outer extremities of the range - so everybody wins! (Of course, the big bucks from oil, gas, coal, and eventually wind, would also go to Alberta.)

  • Ben Parfitt

    49 weeks ago

    Re: The emotional factor

    "Cool Hand", you're obviously well informed on natural gas and energy industry issues. Do you work in the industry? I ask because you, too, hide behind a pseudonym.

    To respond briefly to each of your three points:

    1) BC, Alberta, Texas and Oklahoma do indeed have established gas industries, while Quebec and New York State may not. (Although it was actually in up-State New York in 1821 that the very first commercialized natural gas was first developed from a very shallow shale formation.) Readers of your comments may, however, draw the incorrect impression that BC and others have "60 years" experience with hydraulically fracturing or fracking unconventional gas-bearing formations in the manner presently employed. They do not. Combining numerous wells on a single well pad, drilling each well deep into the earth and then out in long horizontal reaches, and then pumping massive amounts of water down each well in "slickwater” fracking operations where chemical friction reducers are introduced to ease the water’s passage, was only perfected in the past decade and has only been in play in BC for a few years. At today’s biggest multi-well pads in BC, 600 Olympic swimming pool’s worth of water is pressure-pumped underground. No government agency that I am aware of has so much as a plan to quantify what the cumulative impacts on human health and safety and the environment are of such operations.

    2) You suggest that the deeper depths at which shale formations are found in BC make our unconventional gas resources safer to develop. To date, according to the BC Oil and Gas Commission, there have been 18 reported "communications" between fracked wells in the province, meaning that unforeseen contamination corridors between wells spaced up to 750 metres apart have occurred. This is one reason why noted experts on fracking, such as Cornell University’s Anthony Ingraffea, refer to the below ground events induced by fracking as "non-linear chaos".

    3) Natural gas-bearing shale formations in Quebec and New York State are indeed much closer to large human populations than are BC's. That will be of little comfort, however, to the residents of Pouce Coupe who had to flee their homes in 2009 following a well failure at an Encana well that was traced to a build-up of frack sand in the well piping and that resulted in highly toxic sour gas flowing into the night air. Should human health and safety and the environment count for less when there are fewer people around?

    I agree that the fracking debate is an emotional one. It seems sensible then to have a hard look at it in a non-partisan way by our elected leaders or by an independent commission in a forum in which witnesses are called, a wide-range of professional opinion is sought, minutes are kept, the public has access and a report laying out policy recommendations is produced. You share this view, correct?

  • reallife

    49 weeks ago

    The emotional factor

    Not sure about Cool Hands' expertise but I have been involved with resource development as a service provider and a regulator for many years and continue to make my living in the industry.

    1. Yes, the frac jobs have increased greatly in size and use much more fluid, propant and force than early jobs but it is still the same technology.

    2. Communication between wells at depth is not a concern for safety of people or the environment. However, it could present commercial issues that may need addressing by the industry.

    3. The release of gas at Pouce Coupe is only partially attributal to fraccing. Yes, apparently sand cut out a nipple and shame on Encana for not being on top of this - they should not have left a well untended while it is flowing back treatment fluids. A worse incident occurred many years ago near the Blueberry Indian Reserve where an oil well was being tested after fraccing. Sand cut out a section of pipe and very sour gas was released leading to evacuation of the reserve. This is not a condemnation of fraccing but does point to a need for industry to better staff its field operations.

    4. Fraccing is not an issue that calls for a special investigation. However, the business of regulating the entire industry could benefit from a new look. It seems to me that best practices are only employed after an incident happens or an initial application is refused. I believe it would be better if the industry employed best practices at all times. Too many decisions are left to people in the field who are working for a firm that has submitted the lowest bid to the oil company. This too frequently leads to problems caused by cost cutting and lax efforts by the unmotivated field workers. Oil company executives should be held personally responsible for problems in the field. It has long been held that the safety levels in oil operations are inversely proportional to the distance from Calgary (executives do not like to travel a long ways to operations.)

  • WilliamJ

    49 weeks ago

    Money Money Everywhere

    I just returned from Fort St John after flying up to north by helicopter and the gas well development and its associated money is astounding. How can anyone say no to the massive amounts of cash being injected into BC from this development. Every single vehicle on the road is a huge diesel crew cab and all the bars and restaurants are full of young people making massive amounts of cash. This is exactly what our government and these townsfolk are seeing and nothing else. The future to people in this area has absolutely nothing to do with clean water, carbon emissions or right or wrong.

  • Cool Hand

    49 weeks ago

    Ben Parfitt

    Firstly, I post anonymously like every one else. I just wanna keep my privacy. What's wrong with that????

    IOW, just a "straw man" argument in attempting to diffuse my previous post. Of course you post in your own name because you wrote this article! :P

    In any event, NO, I am not involved in the oil and gas industry. I have always an interest in:

    1. Business;

    2. The Economy;

    3, NE BC O & G;

    4. Provincial Revenues;

    Ergo, I have an interest in NE BC fraccing.

    That said, sure New York and Ontario had oil/gas discoveries and production ~ a century ago. That's obviously no longer the case.

    In that vein, streetlights in Steveston (Richmond) were lit by locally drilled natural gas after the turn of the last century.

    Again, Canadian Hunter commenced drilling of a well near Boundary Bay Airport circa 1984 (conventionally) but that program was abandoned. (part of the Georgia Strait basin)

    Note that you have brought up [green conservative] Vicki Huntington and [former moderate New Democrat] Bob Simpson who are also in support the revised HST. From that perspective do you? Likely not.

    In any event, I like to swing the pendulum back to the centre. You have swung the pendulum "emotionally" too far one way, IMHO, with this statement:

    Quote:
    At today’s biggest multi-well pads in BC, 600 Olympic swimming pool’s worth of water is pressure-pumped underground.
    Quote:

    That's all nice and fine and provides great visuals and optics but let's swing the pendulum back to the middle (where I am). I have previously posted and will post this again:

    1. The Debolt water treatment plant provides an alternative to surface water sources to develop a portion of the Horn River Basin.

    2. The Debolt water source formation is a deep, sub-surface, non-potable aquifer containing saline, sour (containing hydrogen sulfide) water.

    3. Tapping this water source required many innovations including the investigation of several sweetening methods needed to remove the hydrogen sulfide and make this water usable.

    4. Operational since June 2010, the plant has significantly reduced surface water use and is expected to fulfil a minimum of [u]80 percent of the water needed[u]

    http://www.encana.com/responsibility/environment/water/snapshot/debolt-plant.htm

    I have NEVER seen your response to that. Look forward to hearing about same. ;)

    And lastly, I tentatively agree that a review of surface water extraction for NE BC fraccing might just CLEAR THYE AIR emotionally.

    But not to be hijacked by biased witnesses/special interest groups with their own ax to grind that would make any findings reasonably null and void.

  • G West

    49 weeks ago

    Others privacy didn't seem so important to you

    Others privacy didn't seem so important to you a while back Luke.

    As for straw men, you certainly ARE an expert user of THAT 'technology'.

    Further, the subject here is fracking - not the HST...

    Have you actually done any real critical reading about fracking and the potential and real dangers associated with it?

    Here's something your buddies at Encana probably don't like to see printed anywhere:

    On August 27, 2009, Reuters reported that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had found toxic chemical contaminants in drinking water wells near gas-drilling operations in Pavillion, Wyoming, where EnCana has 248 natural gas wells. Calgary-based EnCana is Canada’s second biggest energy company (after Suncor) and is now a major player in B.C., with hundreds of new natural gas wells in the province.

    Eleven of 39 water-wells tested in Wyoming by the EPA earlier this year showed chemicals that can cause cancer, kidney failure, anaemia, and fertility problems. Among the contaminants in three of the wells was 2-butoxyehanol (2-BE), a highly toxic solvent often used in fracking.

    And it's 'fracking' not fraccing.

  • Cool Hand

    49 weeks ago

    Ben Parfitt - Epilogue

    BTW, a couple of years ago, the BC treasury received ~$1.5 billion in annual royalties and another $2 billion in drilling rights/land grants.

    ~$3.5 billion in cash ain't chump change.

    Of course, current annual royalties are in the ~$600 million range due to the ebb in NA ng pricing at ~ $3 - $4/ MMBtu. For every dollar increase in th NA price of ng, another ~$300 million flows into the provincial treasury.

    When Hurrican Katrina hit, the ng price was ~$12 - $14 MMBtu. At that price, BC's treasury would receive at least another ~$ 1.2 billion, which would wipe out our current annual deficit.

    And the 4 proposed lng plants on the west coast would funnel ng to the Asian market, where ng is priced to oil at ~ $12 - $14 MMBtu.

    Since my last post, 'big-boy' Malaysian Petronas has also now taken a $1 billion equity stake in a NE BC ng field.

    http://www.calgaryherald.com/slowing+appetite+projects/4941739/story.html

    As an aside, if ya understand that the boomer generation are living longer and that health care costs for a 70-year old are roughly 10X that of a 30-year old, BC definately needs the cash flow from NE BC ng to keep our taxes down.

    Finally, BC is forecast to surpass AB in ng production by the end of this decade. And ng production was the "bread and butter" for AB's provincial treasury for the past decade. Ergo, AB's 5% GST/GST rate

    I hope that ya get my drift.

  • Cool Hand

    49 weeks ago

    G West

    Knowledgable folk in the field call it "fraccing". Not "fracking". lol

    The poster above, "reallife", both understands that terminology as well as the industry.

    BTW, interesting and good post "reallife"!

  • G West

    49 weeks ago

    Lukie

    Look it up - the word is FRACKING. And, I don't believe you have a clue about the dangers and the costs involved.

    Which is not surprising.

    If I thought there was anything to be gained by educating you I would.

  • G West

    49 weeks ago

    You should also look up

    "Knowledgable(sic)"

  • Christy Clark

    48 weeks ago

    Ad hominem

    The author's challenges to users who chose a pseudonym for their posts is an ad hominem attack plain and simple.

    First of all, virtually all identities on internet posts are unverifiable (my post a case in point), and secondly the practice of choosing a single-word handle is a very common and time-honoured one. The characterisation as "hiding" behind such a pseudonym is a provocation that's being used to debase the actual content of the posts and by extension the entire debate.

    Don't want to hear or defend against conflicting views? Choose a forum that doesn't support commenting. Disagree with a conflicting view? Argue on the merits.

  • G West

    48 weeks ago

    Ms Clark

    I think you'll find that most journalists who publish under their own names find that being attacked 'personally', which is what the author thought 'Luke' and happy were doing, is 'troubling'.

    It hardly amounts to an 'ad hominem' attack now does it?

    As for whether Parfitt has responded to this:
    Funny as how when the same storyline is reprinted today in the Tyee all mention of the NDP is swept under the carpet and a heavy dose of Liberal sarcasm is inserted instead. (from happy's initial post); I think you need to read what Parfitt has to say.

    From this casual reader's point of view I think he's engaged pretty significantly with a couple of commenters who were going out of 'their' way to comment anonymously - and not very accurately or fairly - upon what Parfitt's original article had to say.

    Maybe you'd like to look again and reconsider what comes across as pretty random and not very well thought out from your own good self.

    As for being willing to post in the open - there are some folks who do it here ALL THE TIME - and no one questions where their IP comes from.

    I think your comment is offside and provocative.

    Okay?

  • Ben Parfitt

    48 weeks ago

    Glad to see you "tentatively" support inquiry, "Cool Hand"

    Hey "Cool Hand", glad to see you're somewhat in support of an inquiry into B.C.'s unconventional gas industry. An inquiry is the best way to address what are some very complicated, but important public policy issues surrounding the development of British Columbia's finite fossil fuel resources.

    I do not discount, nor have I ever discounted, the revenues generated by the natural gas industry and the degree to which provincial governments - NDP and Liberal alike - have come to depend on such revenues in recent years. I’ve said as much both here and at www.policynote.ca.

    But one cannot ignore the fact that there are public health and safety, and environmental risks associated with such developments.

    I have not advocated in my support for an inquiry that it be limited to a review of the impacts of shale gas developments on surface water supplies. So I am curious as to why you would be so limiting in your "tentative" support. By the way, if you read Bob Simpson’s and Vicki Huntington’s call for a legislative committee to investigate unconventional gas developments in B.C., you will note that the two Independent MLAs believe it is in the public’s best interest for a broad inquiry.

    A meaningful inquiry would report out on many interrelated issues touching on development of B.C.'s unconventional gas reserves. I agree with you that such an inquiry should not be hijacked by any one interest. I doubt based on the history of various commissions of inquiry that such would be the case.

    You also accuse me of whipping up "emotions" by pointing to the vast quantities of water used in today's fracking operations. You then do what many in the industry and in particular Encana do when questions of water use in the industry come up. You refer to Encana's Debolt water treatment plant in the Horn River Basin and its use of non-potable, highly saline water from deep aquifers.

    I first noted the use of such water in a report for the Program on Water Issues at the Munk School of Global Affairs in October. The use of saline water obviously means less freshwater use in one particular area of the Horn River Basin. Will it be without environmental consequence? Time will tell.

    But in the interest of fairness, “Cool Hand” why do you fail to mention the fact that there are 17 long-term surface water applications before provincial water stewardship officials right now just in the Horn River Basin? Collectively these applications cover access to 19.74 million cubic metres of freshwater per year - including an application by Encana for 3 million cubic metres annual withdrawal from the Fort Nelson River. That’s equivalent to 7,898 Olympic swimming pools per year. And that’s just in the Horn River Basin in its early stages of development, and does not include the very active and large Montney Basin play to the south; in other words, a drop in the proverbial (and very big) bucket.

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