Immediate Moratorium on Fracking in England

Fracking is an inherently dangerous industrial process which poisons water aquifers. Do we want our families and future generations to suffer from the effects of chemically contaminated water in perpetuity?

Environment America's Research and policy Centre’s report in 2013, which studied the impact of fracking across the United States, states that fracking poses grave risks to the environment and human health. For this reason the Scottish and Welsh assemblies have imposed a moratorium on fracking in Scotland and Wales. There have been many cases across the US where contamination of drinking water has led to serious impacts on health for humans and livestock. I urge anyone to get hold of it, it makes very sobering reading.

Fracking is not a safe industry and the evidence from studies in the US backs this up. The visual and environmental impact of this industrial process on the landscape and to habitats is dramatic and therefore extremely concerning.

Damage is caused by drilling through water bearing rock strata and pumping a cocktail of toxic chemicals at extremely high pressure in order to shatter oil bearing shale. Well linings break and degrade leading to irreversible contamination of aquifers. The vast quantities, millions of gallons, of water for this process must be taken in competition with the needs of irrigation for agriculture and our drinking water. The water becomes contaminated and cannot be recycled but has to be brought back to the surface and stored in reservoirs or dumped, leading to escape and further permanent damage to the environment.

Fracking will without question threaten the purity and future security of water aquifers across England in densely populated counties including Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire.

Drilling horizontally below for example beneath the South Downs National Park cannot be considered safe. In geological terms, this isn't very deep at all. Depth does not address the risk fundamentals that high pressure fracking and extraction from well head to oil bearing strata and in reverse in a environmentally sensitive and densely populated region poses to health.

Fracking should be regulated with as much rigour as the nuclear industry is under European Environmental Impact Assessment regulation.

The impact of fracking is such a critical and detailed issue for the UK, I urge everyone to review the evidence on fracking that is emerging from the US for themselves and not rely on ministerial briefings and support a moratorium on fracking in England until fracking can ever be proved to be a safe and sustainable industrial practice.

There are proven safe and sustainable alternatives to securing the nation's energy requirements.