Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Daniel Kovalik, Jessica Ernst, Janine Bandcroft by Chris Cook, April 29, 2013, Gorilla Radio
Click and scroll to the bottom to access the podcast (Ernst interview at about 35 Min.)
And; in 1998, oil patch consultant, Jessica Ernst moved out to Rosebud, Wheatland County in Alberta’s heartland. She bought a little house on a tidy bit of land serviced by fresh wells sunk into the Rosebud aquifer. It was an idyllic spot, until EnCana arrived to carry out experiments on a new way to get money out of the ground. The new process was called “hydraulic fracturing,” and anyone who hasn’t heard of it by now, and the dangers it poses to water, wildlife, and people must be living with their head in a hole in the ground.
Those dangers have been exposed in the States, most famously in the documentary film, Gaslands, and dramatized in Matt Damon’s recently released feature film, ‘Promised Land.’ But despite the growing clamour against the practice, or perhaps because of it, fracking is progressing full tilt with ever more wells across ever-broadening jurisdictions.
When Jessica Ernst’s water went bad, she knew why and who was to blame. Ernst filed suit against EnCana, and the company’s enablers in the government of Alberta charged with regulating the industry and protecting the environment. But filing a suit is one thing, fighting it quite another.
Jessica Ernst and when David meets the whole Goliath clan in the second half.
