Nova Scotians Petition for a Frack Ban

The oil & gas industries are seeing fights against fracking everywhere, even in Nova Scotia, Canada. "On behalf of over 1,000 signatories, a petition to ban hydraulic fracturing" was presented to the Nova Scotia Legislature by the Council of Canadians, an organization that fights corporate exploitation of water and organizes people for water access, health, and democracy around the world. They believe that water is a human right and that its transformation into a commodity - whether a for-profit venture from the tap, to bottled water, to its transformation into a toxic cocktail that can get back into public water - is a violation of our rights, not to mention the well-being of the ecosystems in which we live.

The petition itself reads as follows:

• Whereas Petroworth Resources Inc. has indicated that it intends to drill for oil along a seismic line between Lake Ainslie and Mull River in the ‘Ainslie Block’ that extends from St. Rose to Port Hood and east to Whycocomagh in Inverness County, and
• Whereas this exploration may lead to the discovery of shale gas (i.e. natural gas obtained from underground shale formations) as well as oil, and
• Whereas Petroworth Resources Inc has used the technology known as hydraulic fracturing (hereafter referred to as fracking) in the extraction of shale gas in New Brunswick and has not ruled out its utilization in the Ainslie Block, and
• Whereas fracking involves injecting, under very high pressure, millions of litres of water, sand and proprietary chemicals into a large number of underground rock formations, and
• Whereas some of these chemicals can lead to serious health problems, ranging from eye and respiratory disorders to cancer, and
• Whereas fracking in other parts of North America has already resulted in the contamination of underground sources of drinking water and other environmental concerns,
• Whereas other rural communities across North America have reacted to these threats to drinking water and human health by demanding an outright ban on the use of fracking,
• We the undersigned, in the interests of all residents of Nova Scotia, demand a province- wide ban on the use of fracking as described above.

Is this the kind of mobilization people are looking for to slow down the rush into the Marcellus Shale?