Lowest-hanging fruit could cost us the most

At a time of economic crisis, just like the one we are in right now, it’s easy for short-term decisions to be taken that have the potential to have dangerous long-term repercussions.

On the one hand, geologists’ estimates that there are gas deposits in the area centred on Co Leitrim totalling 9.4 trillion cubic metres (worth north of €120bn) is good news for the Government.

One of the companies, Tamboran, has suggested that there is a 75% chance of successful extraction.

On the other hand, the Government realises that extracting this gas from the ground has the potential to pollute the area for generations to come as well as the potential to cause ill health and premature deaths. It finds itself between a rock and a very hard place.

The Government’s take from extracting the gas from the ground would help enormously to lessen the impact of the recession and provide much-needed jobs. However, doing so could render the land fallow for a very long time, as well as create human and animal health problems.

Does the Government solve today’s problems firstly and let tomorrow take care of itself? Or does it say that the environmental cost of extracting the gas using a method called hydraulic fracturing — more commonly called fracking — is a step too far?

Some of us will have seen the documentary Gasland, made by Josh Fox in the US in 2008 and 2009, following an offer from a gas exploration company to lease his family’s land. He looked for information about gas drilling in similar areas to his own, and his initial findings prompted him to spend almost 18 months looking to see how communities had been affected by the process over the previous decade.

Whilst some authorities have taken issue with the findings expressed in the documentary, Fox is no Michael Moore and if he has an ulterior agenda, it is not clear to the viewer.

However, it is clear there is a problem associated with the methodology.

In simple terms, fracking involves injecting fluids under pressure into the ground which will crack the oil-bearing shale and allow for easier extraction.

While the fluids are primarily water, they include chemical additives which amount to 2% of the total weight. Some of the chemicals used are known carcinogens. Some are toxic, and some are neurotoxins.

Therein lays the rub. The gas/oil companies would have us believe that you can pump in huge volumes of water and chemicals into the ground without affecting ground water quality and without affecting anything that might grow in the ground, or indeed eat from the ground. Common sense tells us otherwise.

The gas/oil companies claim to have undertaken tests that prove their point — that there is no proven link between the noted affects on the ground, on the environment and on people.

In taking a view on this issue and deciding what we in Ireland should do, we only have to ask ourselves one question: If everything is hunky dory about fracking, why did US president George Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney lobby successfully to have fracking exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act? What did they fear might affect their friends in Haliburton?

The real decider has to be the reported comment from Tamboran CEO Richard Moorman in 2011, who said that many of the problems caused by fracking in the US were the result of sloppy practice and loose regulation. Now where did we hear that before?

We must ask ourselves, has anything really changed? In addition, Fine Gael has a stated policy in protecting the quality of our ground water, hence the septic tank debate. Let’s see if they really mean it or is money more important.

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