Fracking: The Deeper You Dig, The Darker It Gets
http://www.massivemagazine.org.nz/blog/2012/03/19/fracking-the-deeper-you-dig-the-darker-it-gets/
By Jamie Christian Desplaces
The water that flows down from Mount Taranaki and through the pristine dairy country that surrounds the tiny settlement of Kapuni is not fit for human consumption. But it’s nothing to do with what’s on the land. It’s what’s happening below it, and it has locals afraid for their health.
Locals say the Kapuni Stream is contaminated and they are blaming the toxic poisons being used by oil companies in an extraction method that has drawn criticism around the world – hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process in which liquids laced with chemicals are pumped into the ground at high pressure to force oil to the surface (see diagram ).
They talk about the polluted stream and contaminated ground water and point to a curious cluster of cancer cases. Even the Taranaki District Health Board admits that the death rate from cancer in the province is significantly higher than in the rest of New Zealand.
Secondary school teacher Sarah Roberts says the groundwater in the paddocks around Kapuni which are dotted with oil and gas production platforms, is not safe. She blames it on poisonous water leaching from unlined pits where it is stored after being used in fracking.
“The groundwater is not safe for drinking, stock use, or irrigation, and is right beside the Kapuni Stream. The groundwater at Kapuni it’s not safe to drink.”
It is also known that diesel has been used by oil companies to help them extract oil from the ground, and that diesel contains a toxic mixture of benzene, toluene, ethuylenzene, and xylenes, which can have serious degenerative effects on the human central nervous system.
Sarah Roberts tells the story of a woman in Kapuni who wanted to talk to her.
“I went over and she told me that her family is sick. They have kids with tumours, the woman has MS. I told her one of the worst pits is right next to her and she agreed and said that she was sure all of the pits were contaminated. She said it’s like the Ivon Watkins Dow where all they got after all the years of leukaemia was free health care. She said she doesn’t want to go through all of that, through all of the publicity and scrutiny. She told me that the best advice that she could give was to sell my farm, go live by the beach and forget about it.”
Sarah, who locals have dubbed the Erin Brockovich of Taranaki, is far from alone in her fears.
South Taranaki District Councillor Michael Self has a personal cancer story to tell.
“My mother sang for the Kapuni choir. Half the choir over the last few years have died of cancers. My mother was one of those. They all drank in the area. Over the past five or six years they were just popping off. You start driving down the road past the Kapuni gasworks and you look at the houses and you can reel off the people that have died in recent years.”
Oil companies admit they have previously dumped the fluid used in fracking into unlined earth pits, often without resource consent, and one company admits there are 10 contaminated sites at Kapuni and that the water under them is not fit for stock or irrigation.
Of course no one can prove these illnesses are a result of the fluids used in fracking. The oil industry maintains that hydraulic fracturing is safe.
But locals say they are not so sure, and ask where the Taranaki Regional Council is in all this …
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“It’s reasonably clear that these … earthquakes are being caused by the disposal-well activities.” – Art McGarr, US Geological Survey
Fracking has become notorious around the globe, rousing environmentalists into a foam-mouthed frenzy and exasperating oil and gas executives in equal measures. For every claim, there’s a counter claim, for every accusation, there’s a defence, in what has become a tit-for-tat merry-go-round of classic mud-slinging. The infamous American Gasland documentary of 2010, an exposé of the usual so-called corporate half-truths, lies, and cover-ups, simply added fuel to the already raging oil-field-like fires.
Fracking has been banned in France and Bulgaria and there are moratoriums in place in New South Wales, Quebec, South Africa and some US states. There is protest in parts of Europe and in some corners of the UK especially, with recent revelations that the practice was the cause of minor seismic tremors last year.
Fracking has been going on in the US for around 60 years, and 90 percent of their natural gas wells now use the process. There have been major concerns over air pollution and the contamination of groundwater, and in turn drinking water that, some say, is having a detrimental effect on the health of those who live in proximity to the gas wells. There have been examples of residents holding lighters to running taps causing the water to ignite, and the Environmental Protection Agency has discovered traces of contaminants in water wells across the country.
A New York Times report last year found a number of waste-water wells to be radioactive, and a House of Representatives study of the same year claimed that of 750 compounds used, 680 contained possible carcinogens
Hands Up 
