British Geological Survey has now recorded at least 21 tremors due to shale gas drilling operations in the Blackpool area, during this December alone.
Safety measures must be halted for 18 hours if a quake of more than magnitude 0.5 is detected, which has happened several times since October. The strongest recorded to date was of a magnitude of 1.5, which was felt in the Fylde region on 11 December. This occurred at a depth of one kilometre beneath the earth.
Fracking supporters have sought to play down the many fracking-induced tremors experienced this year as being largely insignificant. This shallow-minded trivialisation merely illustrates a deep-seated ignorance of potential long-term geological ramifications.
Councillors have recently quarrelled over the implications regarding the growing volume of earth tremors at the Preston New Road fracking site in Fylde.
Somewhat controversially, a Lancashire County Council debate which started with a demand to halt the fracking procedure ended with a resolution welcoming the operation as “the most closely monitored in Europe”.
Labour’s John Fillis, said the government should set up an independent inquiry into “what is going wrong”. Nevertheless, cabinet member for economic development and environment at the Tory-run authority, Michael Green, told a meeting of the full council that the authorities regulating the site were in fact independent.
Government propaganda (and selective concerns) must be upheld at all costs?
Mr Green also cautioned councillors to avoid “misleading” language when speaking about tremors. He did, however, go on to admit that indications are that hydraulic fracturing had induced tremors.
This latter Conservative admission is hardly surprising when significant increases of seismic activity are recorded soon after fracking commences. Nevertheless, pro-fracking government spin continues to be happily swallowed by some trusting types, who are blinded by such relentless propaganda or fail to see the potential, long-term, environmental implications.
Making light of minor tremors on a regular basis simply avoids the more pertinent concerns of long-term fracking damage to the environmental structure.
The meeting appeared to be rather one-sided, simply hinging on the issue of tremors. No mentions of detrimental effects by tremors on the local aquifers (a body of permeable rock, which can contain or transmit groundwater) were apparently reported.
Several professors in the field have warned that damage to underground watercourses, even after minor tremors, may not become evident for many years but by then the contamination will have been done. Moreover, when the damage is done it cannot be rectified!
Damage, that is irreparable, may have already been done to the aquifer (thanks to many fracking-induced tremors) and we may not hear about it for decades.
Of course, things are not always as they seem and the ability to honestly speak out is restricted for some.
Government pro-fracking spin doctors, desperate to hide serious academic concerns.
Thistleton and Woodsfold faults amble beneath the Fylde area and scientists have articulated serious concerns regarding potential long-term water contamination, via fracking.
Professor Smythe of the University of Glasgow highlighted that under certain conditions of hydraulic fracturing the pertinent aquifer could be contaminated in about “100 years” by fracking fluid. He furthermore highlighted the fact that due to the geological nature of the area “important faults in the thick Bowland Shale are very hard to identify.”
Moreover, as the rocks crack they create small tremors that were once characteristically too small to be detected. Government puppets with private agendas and big business continue to play Russian roulette with the fragile ecosystem and the community.
Experts (ones not bought by the oil industry) previously warned that minor tremors caused by hydraulic fracturing of natural gas near the surface could be early signs of traumatic conditions deep underground that could destabilise faults and trigger much larger seismic activity. As we now know, after the latest 1.5 magnitude quake this has happened already, just as predicted.
Will the local community experience a much larger earthquake. Will serious damage happen, if the drilling is not finally stopped? Many questions need serious answers and the careless politicians (with selective hearing) must be made to realise this fact!
Many people are now questioning political and corporate priorities and (hidden) agendas that have today apparently superseded valid concerns for the earth and basic common sense at the hands of the pro-fracking lobby.
Things will change ultra-fast, if and when a fracking-related human tragedy or up-front eco-disaster occurs due to ongoing government-promoted recklessness.
Pat Regan ©
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Addendum
Tories against Fracking
A growing number of Tory MPs are turning against fracking, according to one MP with a drilling site in his constituency.
Lee Rowley, who chairs the new all-party parliamentary group looking into the impact of shale gas, told the Guardian he was seeing increasing numbers of colleagues with worries about hydraulic fracturing.
“I think there are more Conservative MPs than perhaps assumed who have concerns about this,” said Rowley, who became the first Conservative MP for North East Derbyshire for 80 years when he won the seat from Labour in 2015. “There are more and more colleagues who are coming up to me and saying, ‘I have concerns about this and I have concerns about the policies.’
“A lot of colleagues start from the position as I did a few months ago: that we have to have a sensible energy policy and we have to look at all options and see what we can do. But when they go through the detail many are coming to the conclusion that fracking is probably not the way forward,” he said.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/01/tories-turning-against-fracking-says-mp-lee-rowley
Tories against Fracking
A growing number of Tory MPs are turning against fracking, according to one MP with a drilling site in his constituency.
Lee Rowley, who chairs the new all-party parliamentary group looking into the impact of shale gas, told the Guardian he was seeing increasing numbers of colleagues with worries about hydraulic fracturing.
“I think there are more Conservative MPs than perhaps assumed who have concerns about this,” said Rowley, who became the first Conservative MP for North East Derbyshire for 80 years when he won the seat from Labour in 2015. “There are more and more colleagues who are coming up to me and saying, ‘I have concerns about this and I have concerns about the policies.’
“A lot of colleagues start from the position as I did a few months ago: that we have to have a sensible energy policy and we have to look at all options and see what we can do. But when they go through the detail many are coming to the conclusion that fracking is probably not the way forward,” he said.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/01/tories-turning-against-fracking-says-mp-lee-rowley
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