The possible hydraulic fracturing in the Karoo goes far beyond aesthetics Photo: Yooperannfracking, Flickr
The concern around the possible hydraulic fracturing in the Karoo goes far beyond aesthetics. While very few people want to see the Karoo transformed into a desolate moonscape of industrial craters and machinery, far more worrisome is the possibility of the permanent contamination of South Africa’s groundwater.
“Fracking” is a colloquialism for hydraulic fracturing, a technique used to extract oil and gas from prolific but challenging shale deposits. Source: The Wall Street Journal.
Given that South Africa is already a highly stressed environment when it comes to water, the potential for contamination of existing water supplies, and the massive quantities of water needed for fracking cannot be ignored. Josh Fox, in his Oscar-nominated documentary about the gas industry in the USA, href=”http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/”>GasLands, paints a frightening picture of the possibilities for disaster and long-term environmental and health problems resulting from industrial fracking.
The vast karoo landscapes currently under threat of hydraulic fracking.
As shown in Fox’s documentary, tap water that fizzes, bubbles and bursts into flame, animals that suffer hairloss, mass fish death in rivers and streams, chronic headaches, shakes, and the possibility of cancers and diseases causing permanent brain damage are but a few of the minor inconveniences suffered by families across America who inhabit the land stretching over the Marcellus Shale, a vast underground gas resource which spans eight states in the US and extends into southern Ontario, Canada.
These communities, many of which are small rural farming towns, are not only losing their livelihoods due to the rapid encroachment of frack sites, but are also living under the permanent threat of chronic health implications and even the total destruction of their homes.
This tunnel is then injected with truly staggering amounts of water and sand, which has been previously imbued with a wide variety of distressing chemicals, which creates cracks in the rock, thus releasing the gas deposits and allowing the cracks to remain open. (If you want a slightly more scientific explanation, go here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing).
Some organisations dedicated to ensuring that the Karoo does not end up fracked beyond all repair.Photo: Jacques van Niekerk
Fracking needs, as mentioned, jaw-droppingly massive amounts of water – 2 million gallons (over 7 and a half million litres!), according to Josh Fox. Which, after it has been used in fracking, is so contaminated that it’s unusable. Also, 70% of that water, the waste water, the water so contaminated that clean-up squads have reportedly received third-degree burns from contact, stays in the ground. If that wasn’t enough, those 80 000 pounds of chemicals in the water (that’s 36 287 kilograms of chemicals) are not bio- degradable.
So, if you’re a thinking human, you’ll probably be musing something along the lines of: ‘toxic stuff being pumped into ground + gas leaking into aquifers + vast amounts of highly poisonous chemicals seeping into underground water sources does not equal a good idea!’
And you’d be entirely correct.
As of March 2011, five oil and gas companies, Shell, Anglo-American, Falcon Gas and Oil, Bundu Gas and Oil and a partnership between Sasol, Statoil and U.S energy giant Chesapeake, have been granted rights for exploration for shale gas in the Karoo. Civil society groups are fighting this tooth and nail.The difference, however, between South Africa and the U.S is that in the U.S, the owner of the land under which the gas lies is considered the owner of the gas, and can thus refuse the gas company’s application to drill. In South Africa however, our government holds the rights to underground mineral, gas and oil deposits.
In other words, if your house happens to sit on top of a vast natural energy reserve, you have absolutely no say in whether or not you allow drilling on your property. So it’s clear that any actions needs to be directed towards ensuring our government knows the inherent dangers in this practice, and convincing the powers that be that while fracking may bring some revenue into South Africa for a few years (anywhere between four and 40 depending on who you choose to believe), surely far more valuable is keeping your population as healthy as possible – which means not exposing them to unnecessary chemicals and ensuring that the little water we have is drinkable as long as it lasts!
Photographs: Jacques van Niekerk www.gustible.com
Luckily, there are numerous organisations dedicated to ensuring that the Karoo does not end up fracked beyond all repair. If you want to be involved, look up these folk:
Treasure the Karoo Action Group
www.treasurethekaroo.blogspot.com
Chase Shell Oil out of the Karoo (facebook group)
http://www.facebook.com/#!/home.php?sk=group_185633661460206
www.fractual.org.za
Online resource full of useful info!
So, what do you think about this issue? Good for the country’s economic development or a fracking bad idea?Please leave a comment below
When a State Turns Against its Citizens: Institutionalised Violence and Political Culture
