What the Frack?

OTTAWA -- The Conservatives have taken their battle with environmentalists to new levels of lunacy, some groups said Tuesday, after a Tory senator suggested they would accept funding from Al Qaeda.

"Let me ask you this, honourable senators: If environmentalists are willing to accept money from Martians, where would they draw the line on where they receive money from? Would they take money from Al Qaeda, the Hamas or the Taliban?," Senator Don Plett, the party's former president, asked in the Senate.

"It's jaw-droopingly bizarre," Devon Page, executive director of EcoJustice told The Huffington Post Canada late Tuesday.... Read more »

The Conservative government has quietly begun looking into the charitable status of environmental groups in the Senate.

Senator Nicole Eaton is sponsoring an inquiry into what she calls "funding by foreign foundations." Eaton began her debate Tuesday by laying out what she considers to be a threat to the Canadian economy.

"This inquiry is about master manipulators who are operating under the guise of charitable organizations in an effort to manipulate our policies for their own gain," she said in the Upper Chamber.

Environmental groups don't see it that way.

"My fear is that they will just try to smear us and then walk away," said John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada. "And that they're hoping to frighten off U.S. foundations from supporting us... And they're going to try to turn off the public from supporting us."... Read more »

In a report released yesterday outlining the federal government’s new counter-terrorism strategy, Public Safety Canada listed environmentalists among other “issue-based domestic extremists” that could pose a threat to Canadians.

Responding to the report, Sierra Club Canada director John Bennett said this portrayal is aligned with officials’ attempts to silence environmental groups opposed to major energy projects like the Northern Gateway pipeline.

“We are one of the few segments of Canadian society that has continually stood up to the present Conservative government and been able to be effective at raising issues," said Bennett.... Read more »

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may have linked fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — to groundwater pollution for the first time.

The EPA announced Thursday that it found compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals in the groundwater beneath a Wyoming community where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals.

The finding could have a chilling effect in both Canada and the U.S. where various levels of government are trying to determine how to regulate the controversial process. Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping pressurized water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and release natural gas and oil trapped in the rock formations.

The industry has long contended that fracking is safe, but environmentalists and some residents who live near drilling sites say it can poison groundwater and release toxic gas into the air.... Read more »

It is "highly probable" that shale gas test drilling triggered earth tremors in Lancashire, a study has found.

But the report, commissioned by energy firm Cuadrilla, also said the quakes were due to an "unusual combination of geology at the well site".

It said conditions which caused the minor earthquakes were "unlikely to occur again".

Protesters opposed to fracking, a gas extraction method, said the report "did not inspire confidence".

Six protesters from campaign group Frack Off climbed a drilling rig at one of Cuadrilla's test drilling sites in Hesketh Bank, near Southport, ahead of the report.... Read more »

ORWELL – Sierra Club Canada – Atlantic Canada chapter is asking for a ban on fracking for natural gas, an end to fish kills and degradation of rivers through nitrates and sediment run off, and an investment in sewage treatment for Charlottetown as three key commitments needed from candidates in the P.E.I. provincial election. Sierra Club Atlantic members gathered on P.E.I. last weekend to celebrate their 10th anniversary and to talk about key issues in the region. One of the key areas discussed was the need to protect Prince Edward Island's precious water ways and fresh water resources.... Read more »