Quebec: Couillard rules out fracking Geoff Vendeville, Montreal Gazette December 16, 2014 | Last Updated: December 16, 2014 9:26 PM EST Premier Philippe Couillard closed the door on shale gas development in Quebec after an environmental review said its risks outweighed the economic benefits. “I don’t think there is a big interest in developing this resource on the economic or financial levels. Anyway, the social acceptability isn’t there,” he said in an exclusive interview with Radio-Canada on Tuesday. “If there’s no segment of the population that approves of the practice then I don’t see the interest in developing it.” Couillard stopped short of calling for an extended ban on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which involves blasting a cocktail of water, sand and chemicals into the ground at very high pressure to break up rock formations and extract natural gas or oil. Last year, the Parti Québécois government imposed a five-year ban on fracking in the St. Lawrence Lowlands, the region between Montreal and Quebec City, home to about 2 million people. But the PQ government was later criticized for offering two energy companies $115 million to carry out exploratory studies on Anticosti Island as a prelude to hydraulic fracturing for oil. After six years of debate on the merits and risks of fracking, Quebec’s advisory office of environmental hearings published a report that found shale gas development in the Montreal-to-Quebec City region wouldn’t be worthwhile. The Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) warned of a “magnitude of potential impacts associated with shale gas industry in an area as populous and sensitive as the St. Lawrence Lowlands.” Among the risks, the BAPE said shale gas activities could pollute the air, increase green house gas emissions by up to 23 per cent and damage the landscape. The report also emphasized the lack of consensus on fracking. “It hasn’t been shown that exploration and extraction of shale gas in the St. Lawrence Lowlands with the fracturing technique would be advantageous for Quebec,” the BAPE concluded. In May, the Couillard government announced an environmental assessment of oil and gas deposits before tabling hydrocarbon legislation next year. Natural Resources Minister Pierre Arcand admitted at the time that fracking hadn’t met the test of social acceptance. The Association québécoise de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique said the BAPE poked holes in fracking proponents’ claim that shale gas extraction is safe. The government now has all the information it needs to ban fracking on its territory, the environmentalist association said. The Quebec Oil and Gas Association refused to comment before watching the interview, which aired at 6 p.m. on Radio-Canada. The association of oil producers called into question the BAPE’s negative economic predictions about fracking in Quebec. “We don’t believe the BAPE has the expertise to reach such hasty conclusions,” the Quebec Oil and Gas Association said in a release on Monday. montrealgazette/news/quebec/couillard-rules-out-fracking
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 21:11:36 +0000
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