FrkAlb-Powers

POWERS WORKSHOP
WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS?
(Fracking in Alberta)
September 10, 2011,
Cochrane RancheHouse, Cochrane, Alberta
(POWERS website, www.powersalberta.ca)

YOU TUBE VIDEOS OF POWERS WORKSHOP

Filmed and edited by Will Koop, B.C. Tap Water Alliance
(www.bctwa.org, and www.bctwa.org/FrackingBC.html)

Featuring Workshop Presenters
Andrew Nikiforuk and Jessica Ernst

(Updated - December 15-2012)

POWERS DECLARES FRACKING MORATORIUM
FOR ALBERTA AND CANADA

This conference is hosted by the people, for the people. We are hoping to light fires in people's hearts and taking down barriers in lobbying for a moratorium on fracking.

POWERS is a newly formed society to protect all water and environmental resources that are threatened by oil and gas development in our community of northwest Rockies here in Alberta.

Our mission is to help landowners become aware of the dangers and the culminative effects on our waters, lands, air and oil and gas operations that threaten them. Several community members have been personally impacted by the industry, including myself.

And, as we educated ourselves on the threats to surface water, and the culminative effects upon our lands, this soon led to our main concern of horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

Indeed, when we educated ourselves about fracking, and the inadequate cement sealing of vertical casing, our first response was to fear. But, now we feel betrayed by: the oil and gas industry; the regulator, the ERCB; the federal and provincial governments - for the disingenuous assurances that our most valuable resource is being protected.

We all enjoy the innumerable benefits from oil and gas in our lives. And, we assure all of you, this is not about destroying the industry. But, rather, it is about the deadly practice of fracking. This is not about them versus us. Its about all of us. This includes every person that works in the industry, whether employees on the rigs or oil and gas executives. Its about protecting our waters and clean air for our children. No one is exempt from the ravages of fracking whether in urban or rural areas.

We want the powers that be to slow down, take a deep breath, and get off the fixation of wealth potential from oil and gas. And remember, that none of us should be blinded by greed, trading one valuable resource for another even more precious.

We demand a moratorium until independent scientists can prove fracking is safe. We cannot live without water.

Other countries, states, and the Province of Quebec have already placed a moratorium on fracking. We are not the only ones who think hydraulic fracking is dangerous.

POWERS is not affiliated with any political party or environmental group. It does not take government grants, money from the oil and gas industry. We are a registered society formed of residents and landowners from Rocky View who are deeply concerned about our drinkable water. We encourage the residents of northwest Rocky View, and all others, to join us in creating a voice that can be heard from here to the Alberta Legislature and on to Ottawa.

POWERS demands a moratorium in Alberta and throughout Canada. Water contamination is not a possibility, it is an inevitability. We need your help.

WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS

Alberta Surface Rights Group (http://www.albertasurfacerights.org)
Council of Canadians (http://www.canadians.org)
Protect Blood Land (http://www.protectbloodland.ca)

Kainai Lethbridge Earth Watch (KLEW) (http://www.annelies.ca/klew/#)

WORKSHOP INTRODUCTION
AND BLOOD TRIBE SPEAKER

This is a brief overview of this issue, believe it or not. There is so much at stake. Each and every one of you can make a difference, and must make a difference. And, you must talk to your neighbours, you must talk to your friends, and you must make them aware that this is an unprecedented, revolutionary event in terms of its impact on water, on people, on landscape in this province (Alberta).

I hope that I've provided a context you now need to understand Jessica Ernst's remarkable story.

JESSICA ERNST

Jessica Ernst is an environmental scientist, with 30 years of oil patch experience. She has a farm in Rosebud, Alberta. Jessica currently hauls her water from outside, because her well is poisoned. Not only can she not drink the water, but she had to disconnect the well from her house because her water contains so much methane it created an explosive risk. Her career as an environmental scientist, and her personal experience, make her uniquely qualified to talk on hydraulic fracking. Jessica was invited to New York in May to present her case, and to make recommendations, on hydraulic fracturing to governments at the United Nations 19th Commission on Sustainable Development.
(Introduction notes from Dr. Gary Tressider, Workshop host.)