CBC article below
June 8, 2006 interrogation and attempted intimidation of Ernst by ERCB (now AER) lawyer & bully Rick McKee, Ernst presented these questions:
None of Ernst’s questions have yet been answered, not even by Dr. John Cherry and his Council of Canadian Academies’ Fraudulent Frac Panel in 2014.
Many deliberately and wrongly withheld records – including the draft reports and uncensored emails proving Steve Wallace with Alberta Environment secretly edited Research Council Dr. Alexander Blythe’s “independent” reports dismissing Zimmermans, Lauridsens, Signer and Ernst’s contamination cases – were finally, 4 years too late, released to Ernst. But, thousands of pages of other records that were ordered released remain withheld, including the “public” baseline water well testing records used to dismiss Ernst’s case, and others in Alberta (Zimmermans, Campbells, Lauridsens, Signers):
Those “public” water well testing records must be phenomenally damning for Alberta’s “research” council, Alberta Environment and Encana to refuse to release them to Ernst.
Where are the authorities in Canada that are supposed to protect drinking water and enforce our laws?
No courage in any authority?
2012 05 24: ERCB lawyer Patricia Johnston, Q.C., wrote Ernst that companies are not even required to tell the regulator what chemicals they inject, including into community drinking water aquifers:
2015 01 30: One of Alberta Environment (the province) many lies, via Alberta “Justice,” in their filed Statement of Defence:
27. On or about June 1, 2007 the Province had made concrete plans for further
testing of the Plaintiff’s well. Sampling was eventually completed and the Province’s
data was provided to ARC for analysis. The Province provided its entire investigation
file to ARC to facilitate this independent analysis and did not withhold any
documentation as alleged by the Plaintiff. ARC concluded that findings could not be
linked to CBM activity. ARC arrived at its own conclusions in this regard and said
conclusions were not influenced by, nor directed by, input from the Province, in
contradiction to allegations made by the Plaintiff in the Claim. Analytical results from ARC were provided by the Province to the Plaintiff. [Emphasis added.
[It’s fascinatingly terrible how the water regulator lies! In 2014, the year before the province wrote the above, Ernst filed with the water regulator’s lawyer Neil Boyle and in court in 2014, copies of the secret editing emails by the water regulator’s Steve Wallace to ARC’s Dr. Alexander Blythe, proving that the province (the water regulator) influenced the ARC’s “own” conclusions by editing them!
Is this why the province is going to such extremes?
“There could be millions or billions of dollars worth of damages,” argued Crown counsel Neil Boyle.
13. In reply to paragraph 27 of the Statement of Defence, and in particular the allegation that “analytical results from ARC were provided by the Province to the Plaintiff’, the Plaintiff pleads and relies on paragraph 74(d) & (e), and further pleads that the province has refused repeated requests by the Plaintiff dating back to March 19, 2008 to disclose the data that was relied on as part of the ARC review, including data on the gas and water wells in the areas of reported contamination. The Plaintiff has attempted to access this data through access to information requests, and has obtained some records, but the most important data has been withheld by the ARC. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta ordered ARC to provide the records requested, but ARC has responded by saying that they no longer have the records in question as they returned them to Alberta Environment. Alberta Environment, for its part, has refused to release the documents, claiming that they are privileged based on the existence of this litigation. As a result of Alberta Environment’s refusal to disclose the data on which the ARC review was based, Alberta Environment has made it impossible for the ARC reports to be subject to peer review and other independent analysis. [Emphasis added.]
2017 05 13: Ernst presentation for ACORRDS Frack Conference at Cochrane Ranchehouse. Ernst presents that even with her lawsuit and Alberta Rules of Court not allowing trade secrets, Encana still has not yet disclosed the chemicals Encana illegally injected into Rosebud’s drinking water aquifers in 2004 – thirteen years ago! Happy Canada Day!
Snaps above from Ernst presentation at ACORRDS Frack Conference in Cochrane, Alberta (Ernst presented after Andrew Nikiforuk, thus the suggestion for the audience to move)
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June 26, 2017: Encana continues to refuse to disclose to Ernst in document exchange for her lawsuit, the chemicals the company injected into her community’s drinking water aquifers and the “public” baseline water well testing records Dr. Alexander Blythe, Alberta Research Council, used to dismiss the fracking drinking water contamination cases, including Ernst’s.
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Alberta a black hole for up-to-date fracking information, ‘I would say it’s being done elsewhere, so why isn’t it being done in Alberta?’ says anti-fracking activist by Kim Trynacity, CBC News Jun 26, 2017
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There have been more than 1,000 hydraulic fracturing operations in Alberta since January. But finding out what’s happening in any region of the province right now is next to impossible.
Numbers provided to the CBC by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) show between January 2017 and June 30, 2017, there have been 1,127 fracking operations conducted.
The AER says the holder of a drilling licence must inform the AER about its intentions to frack an oil or gas well five days before starting the work.
But the industry-funded regulator doesn’t disclose where current fracking operations are occurring on its website.
Some of that information is available on the website FracFocus.ca, but only 30 days after the operation has wrapped up.
The site is a project of the BC Oil and Gas Commission, and according to information [or a con job of secrets and trickery to shut you up with?] on the site, it is “intended to provide objective information on hydraulic fracturing, fracturing fluids, groundwater and surface water protection and related oil and gas activities in Canada.”
A challenge
AER spokesperson Ryan Bartlett said it would be difficult to maintain an up-to-date list of Alberta fracking activity on the AER website because the length of time needed to frack a well varies from as little as “a couple of hours or multiple days” at a stretch.
“The exact start and finish dates tend to be dependent on a number of factors,” said Bartlett.
“It could be the weather, it could be availability of equipment.”
Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting a mix of water, sand and other additives into the ground at high pressure. It causes cracks in the underground rock formation, allowing oil and natural gas to flow, increasing resource production.
The controversial extraction process has incited protests around the world, and resulted in several provinces, states and countries to declare a moratorium or outright ban on fracking.
A University of Calgary study published in the journal Science in ovember 2016 determined earthquakes west of Fox Creek, Alta., in the winter of 2015 were triggered by fracking near a fault system that industry and researchers didn’t know existed at the time.
Potential earthquakes and effects on water have worried some residents who live near fracking sites.
Joshua Ludwig (left), with his late father Wiebo Ludwig in the fall of 2010, is concerned about the escalation of fracking near his property. (Ludwig family)
Seventy members of the Trickle Creek farmstead in northwest Alberta are concerned about the increased fracking they suspect has been going on in their region.
“It’s kind of like an invasion,” [Kind of?] said Josh Ludwig, son of the well-known eco-activist Wiebo Ludwig.
“It seems like every time we take another look, there’s more going on,” added Ludwig.
The Ludwigs are especially worried about the impact fracking could be having on their water aquifer.
“I know everybody’s beginning to realize water is a precious resource. Even though we have a lot of it in Canada doesn’t mean we should treat it so recklessly,” he said.
The Ludwigs and Alberta’s oil and gas industry have a long and troubled relationship.
In 2000, Wiebo Ludwig, former patriarch of the Trickle Creek community, was found guilty on five charges related to bombings and vandalism of oil and gas wells and served 19 months in jail.
Wiebo died of esophageal cancer in 2012 and the family has since kept a fairly low profile.
Line in the ‘fracking sand’
Josh Ludwig says heightened worries about fracking have caused the community to speak out again and to “draw a line in the fracking sand.”
But Ludwig wouldn’t elaborate on what further action his family is willing to take.
“I don’t know if I want to get into some of the details of what we would be planning to do to draw a line,” he said. “We have some different ideas, but it is pretty clear to us this has to come to a stop.”
The anti-fracking lobby group Fractracker Alliance was formed in 2009, after public-health researchers in Pennsylvania noticed public concern about fracking’s possible effect on groundwater quality.
Samantha Rubright with Fractracker said there was no data available at that time about where fracking was happening.
Since then Fractracker has morphed into an influential international lobby group that catalogues maps and locations of oil and gas development.
Daily updates in Pennsylvania
“Now there seems to be a trend towards releasing that data,” said Rubright who pointed out there are now many states which readily provide ongoing information.
Pennsylvania now has location and activity information on tens of thousands of unconventional oil and gas wells updated daily, according to Rubright.
“Those systems are already in place and can be replicated. I would say it’s being done elsewhere, so why isn’t it being done in Alberta?” said Rubright.
The AER points out while it doesn’t publicly release current fracking locations on its website, it does sell an $11 quarterly products and services catalogue, which does provide some information of well locations and activity.
According to information on FracFocus.ca, only wells fractured after January 1, 2013, in Alberta are entered into the system, and entries may actually take longer than 30 days “as licencees develop a system to compile and report the information electronically.” [And, some entries only list trade secrets! Emphasis added]
[Refer also to:
Is chemical disclosure improving anywhere?
No wonder Ireland is making fracking illegal.
2014 08 28: Federally commissioned report, California Council on Science and Technology: Fracking is at shallower depths than previously realized, “It turns out that they’re fracking right around the water table” [In Alberta, companies, including Encana, are fracing right into drinking water aquifers, enabled by the industry-controlled and funded, legally immune, “No Duty of Care” AER, and industry-controlled but taxpayer funded, not-legally immune Alberta Environment (legal immunity contradiction courtesy of Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Chief Justice Neil C. Wittmann)]
20143 05 06: Colorado Congressman Called A ‘Terrorist’ For Pushing Community Control Of Fracking [ERCB, now AER, called Ernst a terrorist too, in 2012 legal brief filed in court to justify violating Ernst’s Charter rights in 2005, judging her a criminal without a trial, without any evidence, without any hearing, without any due process. Then, in a chilling Canadian twist and to help the regulator get away with violating the constitution, Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella, also without any evidence, without any trial, without any due process, make shit up to suit her purposes and named Ernst a “vexatious litigant” attributed to the regulator. What phenomenal evidence Ernst must have, for the top court in Canada to go to such unlawful extremes to keep AER’s illegal frac acts secret!]
2013 08 14: Northest Territories fracking water license allows for company to keep ‘trade secrets’
2013 05 03: Chemical soup used in fracking includes hydrochloric acid, antifreeze
2013 02 03: Legal loophole keeps fracturing mixes murky
2012 12 20: Alberta to start using FracFocus Just another synergy scam to con Albertans into thinking someone is regulating the poisons they are eating, drinking and breathing?
Methylene chloride, a toxic solvent not reported in products used in drilling or hydraulic fracturing, was detected 73% of the time; several times in high concentrations.
2012 08 17: Diesel still used to frack wells FracFocus data show
2012 08 13: Fracking Hazards Obscured In Failure To Disclose Wells
2012 08 13: HYDRAULIC FRACTURING: “Public” disclosure database kept private
2012 08 19: Medical muzzling: Fracking-related gag order on doctors
2012 03 06: Website for fracking fluid disclosure in Alberta planned – eventually
2010 07 19: US Congress Investigating EnCana’s hydraulic fracturing practices asking about all allegations of water contamination caused by their fracing
[Ernst requested the company’s response to Congress. Encana lawyer Jayana Flower refused, claiming the investigation had nothing to do with the community-wide drinking water contamination at Rosebud, including Ernst’s drinking water (after Encana broke the law and hydraulically fractured into the aquifer that supplies Ernst’s water well!)]
The 2010 Congress letter to companies, including Encana
2010: Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective
For many years, drillers have insisted that they do not use toxic chemicals to drill for gas, only guar gum, mud, and sand. While much attention is being given to chemicals used during fracking, our findings indicate that drilling chemicals can be equally, if not more dangerous.
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Why are environmental groups and people only asking for chemicals injected in fracturing? Why not ask for all chemicals injected during all parts of the process, including drilling, cementing, perforating, acidizing, servicing?