Fracking threat to drinking water from underhanded Coalition
![[Image: Friends of the Earth].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/fracking.jpg)
[Image: Friends of the Earth].
The article states: “A few weeks ago we learned – in a leaked letter – that the Government will help fracking companies no matter what. And it appears to be good to its word.
“Last week it ignored increasing public pressure to ban fracking in England. But it did pledge to prohibit fracking near drinking water sources – due to concerns about contamination.
“Roll on just one week and the Government is now fiddling with the law to make this pledge meaningless.
“MPs will now have to vote on whether to accept this u-turn. If they don’t block the changes, then fracking could take place in the areas that provide around one third of our drinking water. This would seriously risk contaminating the drinking water supply.”
This refers to an about-turn in the House of Lords on Monday evening that, it seems, has only been reported on DeSmog UK.
The Labour party tried to force through more stringent measures in the hotly contested Infrastructure Bill currently going through Parliament designed to protect groundwater which could supply homes and businesses.
But the government’s counter-proposal, tabled by Baroness Kramer, the Liberal Democrat transport minister, watered-down the language around safeguarding groundwater supplies from fracking. It now allows the relevant Secretary of State to define what constitutes a ‘protected area’.
This is not what the Labour Party intended when its regulations for fracking were passed by the Commons on January 26 – and it isn’t what Conservative constituents wanted when they demanded their MPs place checks and balances on fracking.
But it is what the Conservative-led government – and by Baroness Kramer’s participation, clearly the Liberal Democrats as well – want. This writer wouldn’t trust a Conservative or Liberal Democrat Secretary of State to define a protected area – would you?
The Coalition is clearly trying to sneak this measure onto the statute books in order to make it law before anybody can protest. They’re slimy like that.
But you have a chance to put a stop to it.
Friends of the Earth have set up a site where you can email your MP and demand they vote the new measure out of the Infrastructure Bill.
A few weeks ago, it looked as though the British people had won a major victory against the corporate cronies and tinpot despots in the Coalition government. Now it seems they could reverse that good work, out of spite.
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I have spent twenty years renovating a 16 century welsh farmhouse which involved installing at great expense a private water supply which comes in from an artesian well.
When I read recently the fracking companies have made an application to our local Denbighshire council for a licence to frack in an area of outstanding right under our noses, my blood boiled.
Despite having repeatedly written to my Tory MP the responses received are not want I wanted to hear, despite demanding he vote against it, he did the total opposite.
If any of them come within 1 mile of my property I won’t be responsible for my actions.
This ill-thought out destruction of our land is for nothing more than lining the Tories pockets and a national disaster in the making.
Ed needs to use this issue as a point scoring exercise in his campaign, he will gain many votes I am sure.
I thought that Wales had done what Scotland has done and put a stop to it for now. It’s a case of defending your own ground, and your own water supply from this awful fracking – if its that safe then let the rich have it done on their properties and their lands and then see how quickly it is stopped.
I really hope they don’t start this where you are, (or anywhere for that matter), but as someone who lived in Denbighshire for 20 years I know just how beautiful it is there.
My understanding is that’s correct – Wales has put a stop to fracking.
I like my water not to be on fire, thank you very much. If I have to buy bottled water thanks to this government that will be expensive and leave me with lots more rubbish to throw away. Rubbish that thanks at least partly to this government, is not being collected properly and is just rotting in a big pile outside, not just mine but everyone else’s.
I have been buying bottled water for the last few years and now have tap water put into filters for anything other than drinking. I just couldn’t drink tap water now and think that the only thing it’s good for is mopping the floors – and I use a steamer for that :)
Come on Mike, get with it and see clearly: While it is true that the Devil is in the detail, it also true that one can get entirely lost in the detail. For example:
Fluoridation: Putting toxic waste from the production of Aluminium and Glyphosphate, that hitherto corporations had to pay to dispose of as Hazardous waste, is now bought by taxpayer funds and put in our drinking water: A practice continued by all parties in power.
Chemtrails? Same story + Chem cocktails using “Fly ash” from coal power plants. A great deal of which ends up in our water.
Fracking: Well fracking has to be undertaken near our drinking water as each bore requires millions and millions of gallons of OUR water to pressurise and fracture rock mixed with a chemical slurry which while secret is thought to include MORE chemical toxic waste along with waste from NUCLEAR power stations. The Gov Corp are certifiably criminal in my view for permitting such eco-terrorism, and should be taken down and serve life sentences for this crime. Look at America; The desolation and destruction. This from Eathquake experimentation carried out in Iran I believe in the 50′ and 60’s.
This just shows why the government accepted Labour’s “stringent measures” without a qualm. They knew they were going to ignore them anyway. Maybe Labour should have voted “against” fracking after all.
No – because then we’d have had totally unregulated fracking. As it is, all you need to do is use the web address in the article to get your MP to do the right thing.
I was concerned, when I found out about this, that some people would see it as an excuse to criticise Labour rather than a reason to be angry at the Conservatives and take action.
Looks like I was right.