anti- Fracking protesters shut down the country’s only hydrolic fracturing rig — again!

1.12.11

Activists set­tle in for long-term occu­pa­tion of tox­ic new indus­try which threat­ens the West Coun­try

The con­tro­ver­sial pro­posed Frack­ing site in Hes­keth Bank, Lan­cashire was shut down this morn­ing as 8 Bris­tol cyclists stormed the drilling rig. Three of the cli­mate jus­tice cam­paign­ers from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide scaled the Cuadrilla Resources equip­ment with sup­plies and have declared their inten­tion to stop work for sev­er­al days.

The drilling rig is the only oper­a­tion of it’s kind work­ing in the coun­try, after a sim­i­lar explorato­ry site in Black­pool was shut down in the spring because it induced two earth­quakes in the area. [1]

Liz Sparks, a spokesper­son for Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, explained the poten­tial dan­gers of frack­ing in the South West:

“Large parts of Wales, Devon, Som­er­set and Dor­est are poten­tial­ly under threat from this des­per­ate new tech­nol­o­gy, which involves extract­ing the gas in shale rock through Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing, (or frack­ing) [2]. Huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals are forced into the ground at high pres­sure, a large pro­por­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. This flu­id also leach­es arsenic out of rocks, cre­at­ing a dan­ger­ous cock­tail that’s dif­fi­cult to dis­pose of. In the Unit­ed states numer­ous spills of these flu­ids have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed irri­ga­tion water, effect­ing food sup­plies, and the health of sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.” [3]

The same site was occu­pied last month by anoth­er group- “Frack Off”, and local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance across the coun­try is gain­ing ground. [4]

Paul Williams, who works in a Bris­tol Library, was among the pro­tes­tors. He com­ment­ed:

“Peo­ple sim­ply aren’t going to stand by and let this crazy extreme sneak into our land­scape. We’ve been inspired by the remark­able work of our neigh­bours in Wales. Glam­or­gan coun­ty coun­cil recent­ly vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly against an appli­ca­tion to Frack the area.[5] This deci­sion was influ­enced by Welsh Water’s sub­mis­sion that reserve ground­wa­ter sites are at risk of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. We can stop this before it starts if we act now. If you want earth­quakes, run­away cli­mate change, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water, and a threat to agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion then Frack­ing’s the way for­ward. If you want ener­gy secu­ri­ty and more jobs per kilo­watt hour, go with renew­ables [6]. It’s a no brain­er.”

The indus­try is quick to point to the US expe­ri­ence of frack­ing, but their safe­ty record there is on increas­ing­ly shaky ground. New York State has just insti­tut­ed a mora­to­ri­um against frack­ing, as has Que­bec, Cana­da. France has banned it out­right, as has New Jer­sey in the US. [7]

Twit­ter: Fol­low the action on twit­ter: https://twitter.com/#!/BrisRisingTide (Bris­Ris­ingTide)

Pho­tos and videos updat­ed in real-time on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71113300@N08/ (Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide)

For more info see: www.frack-off.org
And www.risingtide.org.uk/bristol