Tag: earthquakes

Fracking in BC

~ The Koboi Project

viewRoads and fracking drill pads slice up the scenery in northeastern BC (2013)

In June 2018, Centre forCPA-BC Resource Policy Analyst Ben Parfitt made a presentation to British Columbia’s Scientific Hydraulic Fracturing Review Panel in the context of rising provincial LNG industry and attendant concerns about general health and safety, and specifically the well being of Indigenous Peoples and communities.

Parfitt’s presentation included the following findings:

  • at least 92 dams were built in northeast BC without the companies that built them first obtaining the required licences and authorizations.
  • a large number of drilled and fracked gas wells in one remote operating area in northeast BC leaked methane gas, potentially contaminating groundwater.
  • increased water use at more fracking sites means more earthquakes.
  • contrary to the Province’s adoption and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the fracking operations in BC have taken place without the “free, prior and informed consent” of First Nations.

Imafe: https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/06/07/Northern-BC-Transition-Fuel/

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/ccpa-bc-presentation-scientific-hydraulic-fracturing-review-panel

BC Energy Oroboros 2

~ The Koboi Project

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According to the The Financial Post,  B.C. Hydro, the Crown agency responsible for electricity in the province has been privately expressing concerns that earthquakes triggered by fracking are a potential risk to its dams.

Fracking brings dams

Fracking brings earthquakes

Earthquakes break dams

Fracking breaks dams

Apparently, concerns about this possibility were first expressed in internal documents in 2009 and it is suggested that as early as 2014, B.C. Hydro drew up an agreement with the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission (BCOGC), to create five-kilometer buffer zones around dams within which new fracking and drilling rights would not be issued.

While this alleged agreement indicates the serious concerns within BC Hydro,  their public position seems a little more cavalier. In a response to Financial Times queries on this matter, BC Hydro seems to have responded with the following  – “… our dams can withstand events many times larger than those associated with fracking.”  The crown corporation holds that while,  ” fracking does have the potential to increase natural seepage  … ( this) … is an issue of increased cost, not dam safety … ”

Image: https://www.scoop.it/t/transcalar-imaginary

http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/b-c-hydro-concerned-earthquakes-from-fracking-could-damage-peace-river-dams

 

PETRONAS Dams in BC

~ The Koboi Project

fracking hell BC

As reported in an article arising from research undertaken as part of the Corporate Mapping Project (CMP), and in the context of what has been called a free-for-all in the energy industry, 17 organizations including the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) have called for a full public inquiry into natural gas industry fracking operations in BC. At the centre of this controversy is PETRONAS subsidiary, Progress Energy which built two massive unlicensed dams  in violation of provincial environmental regulations.

These 2 dams are the largest amongst about 50 unlicensed dams that the  CCPA brought to the British Colombian Government’s attention in May this year. In fact, the largest of these, the Lily Dam, is described as being 23 meters tall, the height of a 7 story building, while the threshold for the licensing requirement is 15 meters.  Following on from the CCPA exposure of the situation in May, investigative journalist Andrew Nikiforuk has reported that BC’s Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) inspections revealed serious problems with 7 dams of which Progress Energy is responsible for 5. As a an initial consequence, the provincial government ordered  Progress Energy to drain its two largest dams and has since government has since denied the company’s application for retrospective licensing.

Complicating the politics and the ethics of this corporate/ governmental relationship is the fact that the 2 massive Progress Energy dams, along with the 50 or so other such structures have built by energy companies on lands that are subject to the 1899 Treaty 8 made with the region’s First Nations. The Blueberry River First Nation (BRFN) lands manager Norma Pyle, affirms that the Nation has alerted the Crown about diminished water quantity, “We have been watching lake levels drop, muskeg disappear, mineral licks dry up and streams reduce to small versions of their former selves’. Further, BRFN’s legal counsel Maegan blames regulatory oversight  as “hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of freshwater in their territory is being illegally impounded for oil and gas operations. ”

It is claimed that in the CMP article that documents obtained by the CCPA indicate that all of the unauthorized dams were built to trap freshwater used in the fracking process operation where huge quantities of water are pumped under intense pressure to fracture or crack open deep rock formations so that trapped methane gas is released. And it is further asserted that one such Progress Energy fracking operation. using 160,000 cubic metres of water, triggered a 4.6 magnitude earthquake near Fort St. John in 2015.

Image https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/03/Petronas-Unauthorized-Dams-Fracking/

http://www.policynote.ca/drain-it-petronas-subsidiary-ordered-to-take-action-at-two-controversial-fracking-dams/

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/public-inquiry-needed-properly-investigate-deep-social-and-environmental

Fracking and Earthquakes

~ The Koboi Project ~ 1 Comment

fracking
According to Erin Ellis of the Observer a federal research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada has claimed that his research proves that the largest earthquake ever detected in British Columbia’s northeastern shale gas region was caused by the fracking activities of PETRONAS subsidiary, Progress Energy Inc. This was a 4.6 magnitude quake that took place in the northern Montney Play of British Columbia in August 2015. The  study analyzed the seismic activity its connection with fluid injection hydraulic fracturing being deployed in the region. Spatial and temporal correlation of seismic activity with the fluid injection in the region appears to have revealed that these events are better correlated with hydraulic fracturing than other types of injection. In other words the earthquake that was felt at the surface of the earth near the town of Fort St. John, was the direct result of liquids being pumped into underground rock formations under high pressure to extract natural gas.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/04/12/news/federal-scientist-has-proof-fracking-petronas-owned-company-caused-big-bc-earthquake

http://www.bssaonline.org/content/early/2017/02/17/0120160175.abstract

Image: https://phys.org/news/2015-09-earthquake-baseline-future-fracking.html

FRACKING HELL!!

~ The Koboi Project

fracking hell BC

It is reported in the Tyee that Progress Energy, a subsidiary of PETRONAS has built 16 unauthorized earth dams in the Montney basin, Northeastern British Columbia that, for whatever reason, have not been vetted by the provincial Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) . These dams trap water for large-scale fracking activities which involve injecting a pressurized mix of water, chemicals, gases and sand into the ground – a process that has allegedly triggered significant earthquakes in the region. Progress Energy seems to have built these dams between 2012 and 2014 on Treaty 8 land north of Fort St John. Treaty No. 8 land cover 840,000 square kilometres and is home to 23 Alberta First Nations, 3 Saskatchewan First Nations, 6 Northwestern Territories First Nations and 8 British Columbia First Nations. Treaty rights give members of party Nations, shared territorial rights to hunt, fish, pursue cultural activities and build burial grounds; in other words to collectively live their traditional way of life.

In 2013 the government of British Columbia announced a multi-billion dollar LNG investment by Malaysia’s PETRONAS Group of Companies. The proposal was to build an LNG export terminal on Lelu Island. This investment would have made Malaysia the largest foreign investor or, in liberal terms the greatest economic benefactor to our province. Meanwhile, the racial, religious, financial and political funk of Malaysia has been steadily rising in the wake of the the tightly contested 13th general elections of 2013 as well as the ongoing 1MDB scandal.

In BC the promised investment began driving the inherent tribal, territorial, economic and environmental contestations towards an inexorable crisis. This congruence of contexts that I call mine – Malaysia and British Columbia, gave rise to an awakening  in me of a transpacific identity and to many, many questions – Does the populace of BC have a perspective on Malaysia and on PETRONAS’ imbrication in the finances of  that nation? Are Malaysians aware of economic, environmental and territorial perspectives in BC? … These were some of the stirrings behind this Koboi Kembara Lagi (The Koboi Rides Again) Blog which I initiated in 2015.

Just 2 days ago (July 2017) it was  announced that the PETRONAS LNG Project on Lelu Island would not proceed for financial reasons. While this decision is good news for the fish, for environmentalists and for some natives, others, including many native communities feel that this withdrawal will hurt the economy and consequently the social fabric of society. For the present at least, it seems that the Skeena river and Lelu island are safe from environmental degradation by PETRONAS developments in the context of BC’s resource economy. This relief is however very local, to Lelu island. In the bigger a provincial picture we find that this powerful Malaysian crown corporation is already well entrenched in our LNG economy and, as expressed in the Tyee atticle, involved in environmental controversies that are poorly reported by BC’s mainstream news media.

The Lelu island project was, for PETRONAS, part of a downstreaming exercise designed to maximize profits from PETRONAS’ own primary resource assets that have been developed more discreetly in British Columbia over a much longer period of time. Indeed, the Lelu terminal was intended to bring mainly PETRONAS’ LNG to PETRONAS’ markets in China. The terminal is now not happening but the fracking and its consequences continue. This blog will now follow these activities more closely in search of answers to the abiding question – Can information flows follow global capital and create truly transnational networks and communities of contestation and accord or does the new communications medium create solipsistic circuits of ‘social’ media?  As the Koboi continues his wanderings and his art this Koboi Kembara Lagi blog will go on exploring the implications of Malaysian investments in British Columbia.

Image https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/03/Petronas-Unauthorized-Dams-Fracking/

https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/03/Petronas-Unauthorized-Dams-Fracking/

http://treaty8.bc.ca/treaty-8-accord/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33447456