Little support for fracking
Environmental fears made public at information meeting
Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Thursday, April 16, 2015
INUVIK
If the reaction in Inuvik is any indication, the GNWT is in for a rough ride as it carries out nine public meetings on its proposed fracking regulations.
Inuvik Mayor Floyd Roland was the only person to express his support for the new fracking regulations proposed by the GNWT during a public information session April 9 at Ingamo Hall. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo
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Government representatives spent little time answering questions on the regulations themselves, as critics of the fracking process in general questioned why the GNWT is considering it at all. Several asked why a moratorium isn't an option instead.
The Mackenzie Delta isn't an area suitable for fracking, and wouldn't be directly affected by any projects. Currently, there is no fracking going on in the NWT.
More than 30 people attended the meeting, and only one person offered some qualified support of the government's plans.
That was Inuvik Mayor Floyd Roland, who is a former GNWT representative.
Roland noted the process of drawing up some made-in-the-NWT regulations for fracking was a direct result of the devolution deal that came into effect April 1, 2014. As a former premier, Roland had a considerable amount of input into the earlier stages of negotiating devolution.
"The fact that we are here now, at a community level, talking about what kind of regulations we're going to have, shows that (this process) is having the effect it was supposed to have," Roland said.
He also chided audience members who asked for a moratorium to be considered, arguing a public meeting to discuss the proposed regulations isn't the place to call for a moratorium.
Still, he didn't say he was opposing such a moratorium.
"I am hoping that the government and the regulator, which is the government, would come up with an enhanced level that takes into the concerns of the people of the NWT of what is acceptable and not acceptable," he said.
Duane Smith, the chairperson of the Inuvik Community Corporation, was more critical.
He made it clear he has serious reservations about the fracking process in general, and criticized the government representatives for using up an hour of the meeting on their presentation, thereby cutting into the public question period.
After the record low levels of water in the Mackenzie River last year, Smith said he also worried fracking projects would contribute to that drop, endangering levels for drinking water and transportation.
"This is an issue in the Inuvialuit settlement area because we are downriver from all of these chemicals that would be used in fracking," he said.
Lawrence Norbert of Tsiigehtchic was critical of fracking as well.
"I think the main question is (to ask) whether fracking should be done or not," he told the panel.
"It doesn't say too much about addressing the concerns of Northerners. The Dene Nation called for a moratorium on fracking in 2011. At the Gwich'in Tribal Council last year, we called for a resolution banning fracking in the Gwich'in Settlement Area. I could go on. Yet you guys already had these regulations drafted."
In what was one of the few direct questions on the proposed regulations, Norbert said the GNWT should force any companies involved in fracking to publicly disclose what chemicals they are using in their processes or to be denied permits.
As it stands, companies involved in fracking would have only to to disclose that list of the materials in their drilling "recipes" to the government.
Deborah Archibald, ITI's assistant deputy minister of mineral and petroleum resources, and Menzie McEachern, director of petroleum resources, said that provision was in place to protect the "proprietary" nature of the drilling formulas used by extraction companies.
Industry, Tourism and Investment Minister David Ramsay was in Inuvik the day after the meeting. He said he had already been briefed on it and offered no indication the GNWT had plans to actively consider a fracking moratorium.
"You're not going to stop people from voicing their opinions and their concerns about the issue of hydraulic fracking, and you saw some of that here last night," he said. "But for us, people have to understand is that we inherited requirements that were already in place by the National Energy Board. There's been hydraulic fracturing been done here in the NWT, and it's been done safely."
"For us, as a government, we have to be in the business of risk management and I think having a robust regulatory system that will allow us to protect the environmental interests of the NWT, the water, the land and the people has to be balanced with us having an economy. It's up to us to manage that opportunity. We're putting a Northern stamp on the regulatory process."
Ramsay said a moratorium has never been a question for the government. Instead, the focus has been on "how to do it safely, how to protect the environment, and how to have the best regulatory system to allow that to happen."
