Frack Free BC

Vernon Chapter

Working to end fracking in BC

with a sustainable transition for workers and communities

Fracking is a destructive process of extracting methane gas from deep rock formations using sand and a mixture of toxic chemicals combined with large volumes of water at high pressure to fracture rock to release methane gas.

Visit the Wilderness Committee

Petition to Stop Fracking

In the Montney Formation in NE BC, the fracking zone, residents and workers suffer serious adverse health effects. There are 19,974 oil and gas wells in Blueberry River First Nations traditional territory. The majority of their territory is within 250 meters of an industrial disturbance, and the BC Supreme Court found that the cumulative effects of industrial development on their traditional territory have unjustifiably infringed on Treaty rights.

Fracking operations poison huge amounts of water, putting nearby communities and the environment at risk. The fracking industry pays almost nothing for water, and is not required to treat it. Contaminated water is primarily pumped down disposal wells where it can pollute aquifers and contribute to earthquakes. If completed, the six proposed LNG terminals will double fracked gas production and increase demand for freshwater to at least 10.4 billion litres per year.

British Columbia has committed to a 16% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over 2007 levels by 2025 (next year!) with very little progress to date (most recently measured levels are 1.4% lower than 2007). The six proposed LNG terminals will add 22.5 megatons CO2 equivalent annually (a 33% increase). Premier Eby said in his first speech as Premier “We cannot continue to expand fossil-fuel infrastructure and hit our climate goals.” He wasn’t wrong, but since he made that statement his government has continued to approve new LNG terminals.

BC is actively expanding methane (“natural gas”) mining in spite of declining world gas prices, falling demand, water pollution, damage to community health and its massive carbon contribution to our climate. This seems like a losing strategy. Frack Free BC aims to educate the public about health effects and environmental pollution caused by fracking, and ban fracking in BC.

Read letters to the editor

Frack Free BC is a broad-based alliance made up of allied organizations including NGOs, Indigenous partners, grassroots organizations, community groups, and individuals who are organizing their communities to raise awareness and apply pressure to the government to end fracking in BC. Primary partners are Stand.earth, Dogwood and The Wilderness Committee. Learn more about them here.

Stand.earth

Dogwood

The Wilderness Committee

Historically the oil and gas industry used relatively little water compared to other industrial users. This changed dramatically in 2005 with the introduction of fracking, but laws and regulations have not yet been updated to reflect this new reality.

There is no way to frack without poisoning huge amounts of water, and there is no way to clean up or dispose of the wastewater from fracking without putting communities and the environment at risk.

Stand.earth Fracking with Fresh Water Report

Meet our team

Janet Parkins

Jane Weixl

Eli Pivnick

Heather Clay

Active in Our Community

Click on photos or captions for more information

Presentations to Harwinder Sandhu, MLA and Save Our Summers – July 2023

LNG Economics & Employment

FAQs

What other areas have banned or paused fracking?

Five Canadian Provinces – New Brunswick, Newfoundland/Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec & the Yukon

Six US States – Maryland, New York, Vermont, Oregon, Washington State, & California (2024)

Australia & many European countries – Bulgaria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the Netherlands

How much does it cost to produce electricity with gas compared to other methods?

As of June 2022 electricity production using solar and wind are about half the price ($45 and $46 per megawatt hour respectively) as burning coal ($74) or gas ($81).

Is gas a cleaner source of energy than coal?

When venting, flaring and fugitive methane emissions from wells, pipelines and processing are considered, gas is more harmful than coal because methane, for the first 20 years in our atmosphere, has 86 times the greenhouse gas effect as carbon dioxide.

How much of the gas produced in BC is used in BC?

Currently 12% of the gas produced in BC is used in BC, 65% is used in the Alberta tar sands, and 23% is transported by pipeline to the USA.

How profitable is BC’s gas industry?

The break-even price for gas is $9/Gigajoule. The current price is $2.11/Gigajoule. That is a significant shortfall. Between 2000 and 2017 gas production in BC doubled with a 16-fold decrease in revenue. The gas industry pays $2 billion in tax revenue and royalties; however, Stand.earth, an environment advocacy group, scrutinized the complex subsidies and found that the industry receives $1.9 billion in government subsidies annually.

How much does BC’s fracking industry pay for water?

BC’s oil and gas industry pays $2.25 per million litres of fresh water. There are 9,000 or so gas wells in Northeastern BC, nearly all of them hydraulically fractured. Each “frack job” uses up to 30 million litres of water, which is mixed with toxic chemicals. 30 million litres of water is enough to meet the water needs of 91,000 Canadians for one day. After fracking, the companies pump the contaminated water, which cannot be returned to the hydrological cycle, deep underground into abandoned oil and gas wells where it has the potential to contaminate aquifers and cause earthquakes. The fracking industry is the only industry in BC not required to treat the water it uses. BC’s entire northeast is experiencing a level 5 drought (the worst on the scale) and has been since Fall 2022. If LNG export terminals are built they will need thousands of new fracking wells to fill the pipelines – and that means destroying even more of the water we need for our forests, farms, fish and hydropower.

How many jobs will BC’s LNG industry create?

LNG Canada expects to create 300-450 permanent jobs. The renewable energy industry in BC has created 14,100 jobs, and the BC tourism industry employs 84,500. The BC tourism industry and all the people it employs are threatened by climate change that is being driven by industries like BC’s LNG industry.

How much power will BC’s LNG industry need?

In order to be transported as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) methane gas must be cooled to -162 C and pressurized. This process is highly energy intensive. If all five proposed LNG facilities are built and run on power from BC Hydro, the province would need the equivalent of eight additional Site C dams just to power the gas industry.

What is the Asian demand for BC’s LNG exports?

As of 2022 overall Asian demand has already decreased by 15% and will continue to drop. Asian countries view LNG as expensive and unreliable. Japan and South Korea are boosting domestic supplies of renewables and nuclear energy. China has reduced LNG imports by 20% due to high prices, slower economic growth, increased supply of renewable energy and piped gas from Russia.