Editor, The Times:
I have just returned from Edmonton via Greyhound.
I had a conversation on the bus with a young man who had just come down from Fort St. John. It turned out he was a driller and pile-driver working the oil patch all over the north.
He stated, “They are going to have to quit fracking (hydraulic fracturing) or at least cut it way back. You see trucks all over with water tanks on them. The ground water is so fouled that it is unusable around Fort St. John – and Dawson Creek, for that matter.”
With the recent news that the Fort St. John area has been plagued with minor earthquakes, this should be a wake-up call. Something is very wrong here.
“That wonderful country Canada is now being turned into a thuggish petro-state with all the problems that entails” - George Monbiot.
But hey, wait a minute here! Canada is a democracy, it it not? So how can an industry, mostly foreign-owned – everything from those dreadful Koch brothers to Chinese state oil companies – simply destroy the environment in which Canadians live and walk away scot-free!
A compliant government, fawning corporations? Plus too many people watching Duck Dynasty – all of this and a lot more.
So what has this all to do with the residents of the North Thompson valley?
There has been a lot of talk about large quantities of shale gas in the Kamloops Basin.
So, if Christy Clark's LNG fantasy ever gets off the ground, the frackers will show up in the various towns along the Thompson (like the Greeks in front of Troy with a wooden horse for free).
Judging by previous actions (like the people of Troy) the gates will be opened to them on promise of greater riches to be had.
But, after the groundwater has been rendered undrinkable and the air dangerous to breath, just who will have benefited? Certainly not you.
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater, B.C.