Call for Minister Foster to Act Now to Stop Fracking

I call on Arlene Foster to shut the door on Tamboran’s plans to frack for gas in Fermanagh. In April 2011 her department, DETI, gave Tamboran a five-year license for the field with a deadline of three years to complete exploratory drilling and make a ‘drill or drop’ decision on the field. The license issued is the only one in NI which explicitly references hydraulic fracturing despite the fact that there was absolutely no local consultation or any assessment of potential adverse Environmental or Health impacts.

Minister Foster

In the intervening three years, Tamboran failed to take the steps necessary to meet the deadline for submitting its drill-drop decision. In March of this year they were forced to request a six-month extension which the Minister’s department unilaterally granted. This decision flew in the face of mounting awareness and opposition to this industry and concerns about its impact on our county.

SDLP Party Conference Fails to Vote For a Ban on Fracking

The recent press exposure of the fact that the SDLP party membership voted down a motion calling for a ban on Fracking is a disappointment to campaigners opposed to this destructive industry. The SDLP's position has been characterised by a deep sense of political opportunism throughout the process. Publicly members of the party have been keen to be seen opposing Fracking but the reality on the ground is very difficult.

Some individual members have been forceful in their position on the issue but primarily it has been those elected by communities facing this challenge. Councillor Brendan Gallagher of Erne West spoke publicly for a Ban on Fracking at a meeting of approximately 400 residents in the rural area of Cashel in 2011. He subsequently brought forward a successful motion calling for a Moratorium on Hydraulic Fracturing for Gas in Fermanagh District Council. Councillor Donal Cunningham of the Moyle District Council area brought forward a similar, successful motion against proposals for fracking in the Rathlin Basin area of the north coast.

At Stormont, the situation has been more complicated. While the SDLP supported a motion calling for a Moratorium which was passed in the NI Assembly in 2012 and both their Ministers for the Environment have publicly voiced concerns over the environmental impact and safety of Fracking, very little concrete has been done.

Colorado Inundation Exposes Fracking Danger

Many of us have heard accounts of how Colorado has suffered from unprecedented floods. Main streets in university cities like Boulder, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, have been turned into rivers as flash floods have hurtled down washing away roads and buildings in their wake.

The more environmentally conscious will have accounted for this as another example of the extreme weather that we can expect a lot more of in the context of ever increasing CO2 levels and global warming; it is basic physics, put more energy into a dynamical system and you get more extreme behaviour. But few are aware of the disastrous impact that these floods have had on communities already living with extensive fracking in their back yards.