Partial Success for Mi’kmaq: SWN Pulls Out (Till 2015?)

6th Dec

ELSIPGOTG FIRST NATION, NB–A Hous­ton-based ener­gy com­pa­ny that has faced fero­cious resis­tance from a Mi’kmaq-led coali­tion is end­ing its shale gas explo­ration work for the year, says Elsi­pog­tog War Chief John Levi.

Levi said Fri­day that the RCMP informed him that SWN Resources Cana­da is end­ing its explo­ration work, but will return in 2015.

Levi said SWN and its con­trac­tors would be pick­ing up geo­phones from the side of the high­way today. Geo­phones inter­act with thumper trucks to cre­ate imag­ing of shale gas deposits under­ground.

“They are just going to be pick­ing up their gear today,” said Levi. “At least peo­ple can take a break for Christ­mas.”

Demon­stra­tions against the com­pa­ny esca­lat­ed this week. Demon­stra­tors twice burned tires on Hwy 11 which was the area where SWN was con­duct­ing its shale gas explo­ration.

SWN said in a state­ment late Fri­day after­noon that it had com­plet­ed its “seis­mic acqui­si­tions pro­gram in New Brunswick.”

The com­pa­ny, how­ev­er, was silent on its future time­line for return­ing. [empha­sis added ‑Ed.]

SWN obtained an exten­sion to an injunc­tion against the demon­stra­tors Mon­day after argu­ing it need­ed two more weeks to fin­ish its work. In its court fil­ing, SWN claimed it need­ed about 25 km left to explore.

Levi said the Mi’kmaq com­mu­ni­ty, which sits about 80 km north of Monc­ton, will be there again in 2015 to oppose the com­pa­ny. Levi said SWN will be return­ing to con­duct explorato­ry drilling.

“We can’t allow any drilling, we didn’t allow them to do the test­ing from the begin­ning,” said Levi.

Levi said word that SWN is leav­ing is no cause for cel­e­bra­tion just yet.

“We went through a lot,” he said. “We need some time for this to sink in and think about every­thing, think about what we went through…People did a lot of sac­ri­fic­ing.”