Another 2,070 anti-drilling signatures sent to Weadick by Caroline Zentner, April 15, 2014, Lethbridge Herald
No Drilling Lethbridge has shipped an additional 2,070 signatures to Lethbridge West MLA Greg Weadick’s office in Edmonton. The signatures are on top of the more than 11,000 signatures already submitted. “It shows that this issue still has momentum and we’re not going to stop until Goldenkey has announced the cancellation of this project,” said Dave McCaffrey, spokesman for No Drilling Lethbridge.
The group urges city residents to contact Diana McQueen, energy minister, and Weadick, and ask them to push for the Alberta government to not extend Goldenkey’s mineral rights lease. McCaffrey said Goldenkey’s current lease expired on March 24 and the company applied to extend it on March 3. “It would be a very simple resolution to this issue if the government simply did not extend that licence,” he said.
David Hill, Goldenkey representative, said the company has put its application to drill three exploratory wells in west Lethbridge on hold until the province comes up with its new policy on urban drilling. The task force was announced in mid-March and Weadick said McQueen asked him to be a member. “We don’t know very many details at all about the task force, who’s on it, what their mandate is, when they’ll be reporting,” McCaffrey said. “We want to make sure this is not another stall tactic.”
In the meantime, McCaffrey said No Drilling Lethbridge intends to keep active. “We’re just continuing with our petition and continuing to pressure Goldenkey to cancel the project and continuing to pressure the Alberta government to not extend that mineral licence,” he said.
Anyone interested in signing the petition can find it online at www.nodrillinglethbridge.ca.
