Fracking in New Zealand

Region's fracking history queried

The Green Party is again questioning the Taranaki Regional Council's monitoring of fracking in the region.

Taranaki Daily News,

15 October, 2012

Yesterday the party's energy spokesman, MP Gareth Hughes, said in a statement that it was worrying neither the council nor any other government agency could give details on hydraulic fracturing chemicals used from 1989 to August last year.

Mr Hughes' comments came in the wake of revelations Shell Todd Oil Services plans to use radioactive material in its new drilling campaign at Kapuni.

On Saturday, the Taranaki Daily News revealed that the plans were contained in resource consent application before the Taranaki Regional Council.

The council is unable to say whether radioactive tracers have been used in Taranaki before because fracking did not require resource consent until last August.

During the 22 years from 1989 until then, fracking was undertaken 72 times in Taranaki without resource consent.

Since August last year, the council has processed 13 resource consents for fracking.

The practice, in which a mixture of chemicals and water is injected into the ground at high pressure to help release gas, is a major driver of a renewed oil and gas boom in Taranaki.

Council director environment quality Gary Bedford said it had done extensive testing of shallow aquifers at sites at Cheal, Kapuni, Manutahi, and Waitui and had uncovered no traces of contamination from past fracking.

"While we may not have the detailed chemical compositions of what was used 20 years ago, we can test for signs of contamination." Telltale signs were high salinity in the water, traces of hydrocarbons or high levels of methane gas, Mr Bedford said.

"We're not finding anything, anywhere that says there has been spillage or leakage."

Nevertheless, Mr Hughes repeated his call for the Government to place a moratorium on fracking.

"The Government's role should be to provide critical oversight of the controversial fracking practice, but it has become an apologist and cheerleader for the industry instead,” Mr Hughes said.

"The responsible step for the Government would be to announce a moratorium on fracking until it can demonstrate to New Zealanders it has the appropriate rules and regulations in place and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment assures us it is safe.” The commissioner's report into fracking is due later this year.

The Green Party had requested a full breakdown of the names and volumes of fracking chemicals used in the practice from Taranaki's three district councils, the Taranaki Regional Council, and the Economic Development Ministry.

"Only Taranaki Regional Council provided us with information and it was the names and volumes of the 12 fracking events that have taken place since mid-2011," he said.

"The Environmental Risk Management Authority part of the Environmental Protection Authority does not hold this information either.

“I want to know if dangerous chemicals and radioactive tracers have been used in Taranaki for decades, but no agency I have asked can provide a list of the chemicals used in Taranaki fracking prior to mid-2011,” Mr Hughes said.

But Mr Bedford said the regional council was a little bemused at being cast in some quarters as a defender of fracking.

"That's not the case, our job is to look for evidence either way," he said.

"What we're consistently finding is that this can be safely managed and can go ahead with proper controls in place.

"It's not my place to speculate why the Green Party are taking a political stance on this, instead of one based on evidence and science."

In the meantime this is the position of the government.

Joyce: Taranaki an oil and gas model

The economic windfall delivered by Taranaki's oil and gas industry, which keeps 3000 people in jobs paying more than $100,000 a year, is a compelling reason to explore the potential in Hawke's Bay, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce says

Stuff,

3 October, 2012

At a meeting with the region's councils in Hastings on Friday, the minister announced a joint study to look at the potential economic benefits of establishing an onshore oil and gas industry on the East Coast.

The councils - Gisborne, Wairoa, Hastings, Napier, Central Hawke's Bay, Tararua and the Hawke's Bay and Horizons regional councils - were helping fund the study through Business Hawke's Bay, with $30,000.

The Government was putting in the $100,000 balance.

Mr Joyce said that although companies wanting to mine in the region had come up with projections on the value of the industry, the Government wanted independent advice on the benefits and risks.

The report would be completed by the end of the year.

It would not be an in-depth study on environmental risks, since these would be covered by a resource consent hearing on any application.

"This won't be a substitute for the RMA process when someone wants to [mine]. It's literally a case of let's have a look at the opportunities, let's scope the limitations to these opportunities and let's present the potential."

The Government also did not want to duplicate the work being done by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment on the effects of the controversial mining method of "fracking", due out this year.

Mr Joyce said the potential benefits of the industry could not be ignored.

"If I can give you the Taranaki example . . . [it's] 3000 people with just about all of them with incomes in excess of $100,000 a year.

"So they are higher paying jobs which is not only good for the people involved, but it's good for the wider economy."

He said the industry kept employment levels high in that region.

"If you look at the Taranaki region, it's got the lowest unemployment rate in New Zealand, currently around 3.8 per cent - it's about 6.2 here - and that is undoubtedly due to the additional income that is obtained not just from the oil and gas industry but the downstream engineering industry that's involved."

Napier MP Chris Tremain told the meeting that "a silent majority" in the region at least wanted the opportunities looked at.

"[They] are keen to understand the context of this opportunity for the East Coast, balancing that with some of the environmental concerns that have been put out there."