Fracking fight to go on
‘Ill-informed decisions’ by state feared
FARMERS want to continue to oppose fracking in the Karoo but welcomed baseline studies on their water reservoirs. Dickie Ogilvie, representing Graaff-Reinet and Aberdeen farmers, yesterday tabled a resolution at Agri EC’s annual congress “to continue to oppose the granting of licences for exploratory shale gas drilling using the hydraulic fracturing method until all the landowners’ concerns and requirements, as contained in the policy documents drawn up by Agri EC and Agri SA, have been adequately addressed”.
“We cannot [be] and have not been given any guarantees on water contamination. Livelihoods are at stake – not only of farmers but also the small towns reliant on underground water,” Ogilvie said.
“The question that has got to be asked is, what if?
“We want to avoid ill-informed decisions made by power-hungry or money-hungry politicians bullied into corners by corporates.”
Agri EC committee member Dougie Stern said some of the affected Karoo farmers had recently met Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University shale gas project head Professor Maarten de Wit regarding the baseline water testing planned by the university.
“He gave us the assurance that farmers will have access to the results of the baseline testing, which we could use against the companies should any damage to the water resources take place,” Stern said.
Agri EC president Ernest Pringle said proper studies needed to be done to determine whether there were enough shale gas reserves in the Karoo and whether it was in the interests of South Africans for fracking to take place.
Some of Agri EC’s requirements on shale gas exploration were that international codes of best practice were adapted and that an independent regulator be established.
“With the government taking a 20% cut from shale gas exploration, the referee cannot be a player as well,” Pringle said.
“The regulator should be given sufficient funding and mandate to enable it to perform its duties.”
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, the keynote speaker at the congress, said fracking was a debate for another day.
However, he promised to come back to the Agri EC representatives and discuss the is- sue of hydraulic fracturing in more detail. “Hydraulic fracturing is very much the same as the problem of the N2 extension through Pondoland.
“The N2 will trigger economic activity in the region and we should not stand in the way of development, but this really is a debate for another day,” Mantashe said