CEO of Gastem says ecology activists are fascists and states that ‘nobody’ in Alberta complains about drilling wells, Le pdg de Gastem qualifie les militants écologistes de “fascistes”

CEO of Gastem says ecology activists are fascists translation by des Ami(e)s du Richelieu February 17, 2013 of Le pdg de Gastem qualifie les militants écologistes de “fascistes” by Lapress.ca and Le Soleil, February 16, 2013
Mr Savoie did this declaration to the Soleil in reaction to the elected officials of the Gaspésie municipality of South-East Ristigouche that want to vote in a bylaw that would protect a zone of many kilometres around groundwater sources, which would threaten a Gastem drilling project. “This is a bit harebrained, frivolous, ridiculous, because they (the elected officials) don’t have any experience. They imagine the worse. And then, “greenshirts” show up, with their fascist attitude. They drill 15,000 wells a year in Alberta and nobody complains.” says Mr Savoie. … Gastem was planning to spend $3,5 million in the Spring before the City Council of Ristigouche-Partie-Sud-Est expressed it’s intention of voting for a bylaw much like the one voted in Gaspé last December, where the town stopped a Pétrolia drilling project in January. “Here, there are private artesian wells, says city councillor Micheline Pelletier. The issues are greater, with houses near the drilling. We won’t write a regulation hastily. We’ll gather information from some experts.” It’s a bit the same as a $6 million project planned by Gastem on the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, a project less in progress. The archipelago mayor, Joël Arseneau, said last week that his council would adopt a regulation to protect the water table. “The government asked a BAPE (provincial environmental public hearings body to evaluate the islands project). It’s irresponsible.” ads Mr Savoie, blaming the ex Liberal Minister Pierre Arcand. “In Quebec, we have adopted a discourse of fear, of false parish priests.” [Emphasis added]

[Refer also to:

2002 Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment: Groundwater Quality The report concluded that unconventional natural gas drilling such as coalbed methane (CBM) poses a real threat to groundwater quality and quantity….

2005 The Globe and Mail Report on Business: Life Inside a Science Project

2005 Ranchers ready for drilling fight “The density of wells will still be extreme (even when using multi-well pads),” he said. “This is a very tight gas field. That has a tremendous impact on the landscape.”  … “The industry calls it ‘carpet bombing’ or statistical drilling,”…. “You drill as many friggin’ wells as you can in the hopes that 60 per cent of them will produce a small amount of gas.” “We’re talking about drilling it to death,”

2005 Front Page Edmonton Journal article by Hanneke Brooymans: Tainted water lights fire under gas fears

2006 The Groundwater Debate Jessica Ernst, a well respected oil patch consultant who lost her water supply after CBM activity in her neighborhood, poses four good questions:

• Why has the regulator allowed companies to risk Alberta’s groundwater without proper safeguards as recommended by the Canadian Council of Environmental Ministers in 2002?
• Why has CBM activity been allowed to escalate at the expense of public health and safety?
• What are the fracing chemicals?
• And how do we bring the mandate of the regulator back into balance for all of Albertans?
The government still hasn’t come up with answers yet.

2006 Canadian Business Magazine: Firewater

2006 Inflaming a Conflict, Alberta Landowners Claim Coal-bed Methane Drilling Contaminates their Water. Or Are They Just Reviving Old Rivalries Between Farmers and Industry?

2006 October Cover Article: Trouble in the Fields: Is our water safe? Landowners near coalbed methane wells say government won’t protect their water. So who will?

2007 Is Canada the latest emerging petro-tyranny? Given their one-sidedness, oil regimes fear transparency. This explains why Alberta operates one of the most secretive governments in Canada. Just last year Alberta’s Conservative government made it legal for its petro-tyrants to lock away internal audits for 15 years and for government ministers to keep their briefing binders out of public view for five years. Making propaganda is also one of oil’s many antidemocratic characteristics. The Alberta government currently spends $14-million a year and employs 117 full-time staff in its Public Affairs Bureau to tell Albertans what to think. Not even President George W. Bush employs a propaganda arm this large in the White House. The tone of government has also become increasingly authoritarian. … Alberta has also sacrificed the rule of law. It seems whenever open public debate threatens to challenge another government-sanctioned energy project, the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB), a de facto rubber stamp for disorderly development, shuts down public participation citing “security” reasons.

2007 Backlash against a whistle blower, For years, Dr. John O’Connor has made headlines by continually asking why natives near the oil sands have so much cancer

2007 Jessica Ernst ‘banished’ by the EUB, A consultant’s run-in with the Alberta agency over an e-mail provides some lessons in why landowners’ suspicions are as deep as oil wells

2007 EUB [now ERCB]: ‘Men Without Chests,’ ‘No Plan, No Policy, No Heart’

2007 full Criminal Investigation of the EUB requested

2007 En Alberta, l’eau S’enflamme! English translation

2008 Gas in area causing tainted water “I don’t know what to do,” Ernst added. “How do you fight the entire Alberta government and EnCana?”

2008 Citizen EnCana The double life of Calgary’s greatest corporation, Good Corporate Citizen or Evil Empire?

2009 Cupid’s arrow pierces energy regulator Alberta ERCB “People have been saying for years that the ERCB and the industry are in bed together,” … “Now we have hard evidence to prove it.”

2009 CTV W5 Alberta Gas: Battle over wells

2011 What Lies Beneath? Almost 100,000 spent oil and gas wells litter Alberta. Who will pay the clean-up cost? “You phone the ERCB and they say, ‘that’s not our jurisdiction, phone the SRB,’” says Bruder. “And you phone the SRB and they say, ‘that’s not our jurisdiction, phone Alberta Environment,’ and Alberta Environment says, ‘that’s not our jurisdiction, phone the ERCB’.” Bruder’s handlebar moustache bristles along with his contempt. “And you just keep going around in a circle.” [Emphasis added]

2011 Front Page The Globe and Mail Business Section ‘Fracking’ starts to bring on legal challenges “I’m not the only one. There are many others that this has happened to, and my story is not unique,” Ms. Ernst said in an interview from New York, where she is taking part in a panel discussion on fracking being held at the United Nations.

2011 Fingerprinting of gas contaminating groundwater and soil in a petroliferous region, Alberta, Canada by Barb Tilley and Karlis Muehlenbachs, Proceedings from International Network of Environmental Forensics conference, Cambridge, UK, July 25-27, 2011

2011 What Fresh Hell is this? Alberta citizens demand Frack Moratorium. “It is for this cloak of secrecy, the unstudied impacts and cumulative effects, the decimated communities and a captured regulator and government, that we demand a moratorium until independent scientists prove hydraulic fracturing is safe.”

 2011 POWERSAlberta Frack Workshop

2011 Alberta Surface Rights Group Report on the POWERS Frack Alberta Workshop The basic story was one of betrayal, of deception by the very people whose job it was to protect her, of lying, intimidation, smearing her reputation……after she objected to Encana destroying her water well through hydro fracking! She talked of her fear and terror. She talked about her disappointment with the industry, the government, and some of her neighbors. She talked about her determination to see this through to the end…..no matter what they throw at her!

2011 Documents Reveal Industry and Gov’t Collude on Shale Gas Alberta New Dems release secret agreements about handling public opinion

2011 Tell Us What’s Being Done to Our Groundwater, Demand Albertans

2011 Fracking and Quaking: They’re Linked And scientists, the military, and frackers themselves have known it for years

2011 Front Page Lethbridge Herald: ‘Frack hell is imminent’

2011 Fracking Grievances aired at Eagle Hill

2011 16×9 Untested Science: Fracking natural gas controversy

2011 Fracking Contamination ‘Will Get Worse’: Alberta Expert Dr. Karlis Muehlenbachs

2011 ERCB sanctions Legacy Petroleum Order issued nearly 15 years after offences took place

2011 Fracking fears spur review of oilpatch regulations: Provinces commited to registry to disclose use of chemicals

2011 Fracking a lesser-known, but significant environmental insurance risk

2012 More Public Disclosure for Fracking During a press briefing meant to minimize growing public concerns about the fracking of oil and gas, Cal Hill of the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) said Alberta will likely demand producers notify the public about fracking activities…. [Emphasis added]

2012 Moratorium sought until safety proven “We trusted when we never should have trusted.”…the technique alarms rancher Nielle Hawkwood, who lives in the district.

2012 National Farmer’s Union Demands Moratorium on frac’ing “Not many of these stories get made public because the oil and gas companies usually force farmers to sign confidentiality agreements in return for replacement of their water wells” said Slomp.

2012 Alberta Plays Catch-up on Frack Front

2012 Labour federation says energy companies made millions exploiting government loophole “The government is telling Albertans the cupboard is bare for public services, but it’s bare in large measure because of this irresponsible and out-of-control corporate giveaway.”

2012 Breaking up is hard to do Ernst argues that Ireland should “do a conservative socio-economic assessment of what Ireland stands to lose — in current jobs, industry, your infrastructure, your health. And even the water itself. What is the value of Ireland’s rivers and loughs? Often in these things, we look at the supposed short-term gains, but we don’t look at what we put at risk.” When asked what she would suggest as a course of action for Ireland on fracking, her message is simple: wait. “The best advice I can give to people in Ireland is that the wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Watch the mistakes happen everywhere else,”

2012 Past Rocky View County Reeve Paddy Munro sounds fracking alarm

2012 Petroleum lobby ‘pulling a con job’ on fracking, Mulcair warns

2012 Holding Frackers Accountable for Groundwater Pollution: An Analysis of Canada’s Liability Regimes for Hydraulic Fracturing

2012 Can Fracking Be Cleaned Up? The International Energy Agency says yes, but it will take tougher regulations that force producers to apply the latest technologies Significant levels of methane, the main component of natural gas, have been found in drinking-water supplies near some fracking sites. ….some fracking sites are relatively near to the level of drinking water, and the IEA suggests it might make sense to ban the procedure at such locations. … “It can’t just be counting on companies to adopt best practices, because you’ll only have a certain percentage of the well operators doing it,”  [Emphasis added]

2012 Frack this, time to review, NDP calls for a deeper look at fracking in Alberta

2012: Kimberly Mildenstein of Eagle Hill Alberta Spared Criminal Record for Uttering Threats after Numerous Concerns to the Energy Resources Conservation Board Were Ignored

‘I have given up the rest of my life for this’, Jessica Ernst is convinced there’s nothing good about hydraulic fracturing Gaz de schiste – la mission de Jessica, “J’ai laissé tombé tout le reste de ma vie pour ceci.”

2012 Lois Frank, grandmother and professor, receives award for her courage fighting fracking

Source: Slide from The Great Get-Away Secrets of a Frac Cover-Up Ernst presentation Mount Royal University, October 2012

2012 CAPP pushes fracking standards, Amid rising opposition, concerns about hydraulic fracturing’s effect on water, land

2012 171,000 frac’d wells later, the Alberta energy regulator, the ERCB (previously EUB, soon to be AER) trots out Draft Hydraulic Fracturing Directive

2012 Hydraulic fracturing with gelled propane by Gasfrac/Crew Energy Inc./Caltex Energy Inc. contaminated groundwater near Grande Prairie: ERCB Investigative Report and groundwater monitoring by Alberta Environment

2013 How Alberta Will Fight Fracking Folk Hero Jessica Ernst, In famous flaming water case, regulator to argue ‘no duty of care’ to landowners or groundwater

2013 Common interests: Ernst vs Encana and Energy Regulator Lawsuit and Idle No More

2013 Wheatland County in Alberta pushes fracking resolution

2013 Wheatland County (Alberta) Councillors call for Fracking Halt until Protective Methods are Developed

2013 Front Page Spring contaminated after fracking in Mountain View County, Alberta landowner wants answers

2013 Fracking gets its day in court

2013 Canada’s environmental activists seen as ‘threat to national security’, Police and security agencies describe green groups’ protests and petitions as ‘forms of attack’, documents reveal

FrackingCanada: Community Voice The Campbells Suffer Test after Test Confirming Sour Thermogenic Industry Gas in their Drinking Water; No Water Repair or Alternate Safe Water Provided

Source: FrackingCanada: How the West was Lost

Source: FrackingCanada: How the West was Lost

Source: FrackingCanada: How the West was Lost

Fracking Canada: No Duty of Care

FrackingCanada: Fracking Calgary ]

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