Farmers have welcomed the move by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment to support a ban on fracking. A report published last week by the joint committee supports the bill to ban oil extraction through hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, despite the technology’s potential economic benefits.
Farmers have welcomed the move by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment to support a ban on fracking.
A report published last week by the joint committee supports the bill to ban oil extraction through hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, despite the technology’s potential economic benefits.
“The committee is of the view that these benefits are outweighed by the risks to the environment and human health from an as-yet relatively untried technology,” wrote committee chair Hildegarde Naughton TD.
“There was no other possible conclusion – now they’re going to have to go ahead and ban it,” said Leah Doherty, a campaigner against fracking in the northwest. She called on the Oireachtas to pass the bill before the summer recess.
Two shale gas basins extend under parts of eight counties around Lough Allen in the northwest, and on both sides of the Shannon estuary.
“We know there is gas. There were exploratory wells drilled about 30 years ago,” said Tommy Earley, a suckler farmer in Mount Allen near Arigna in Co Roscommon.
He is not opposed to gas extraction in principle, but he thinks the numerous wells dotted around the landscape and the large quantities of pressured water and chemicals involved in breaking underground rock and pushing out the gas pose too much of a pollution risk – whether through surface runoff or underground seepage.
Earley said the leasing model proposed by fracking companies did not suit him.
“The companies were to lease the land off farmers and return it when they were finished, but if leaks happened later on, you were responsible,” he said.
The organic farmer added that his farming was based on keeping track of everything he puts in the ground as it enters the food chain. “With fracking, something could come up from underneath and we could not account for it,” he said.
Listen to "Northwest farmer welcomes fracking report" on Spreaker.
Aubrac suckler farmer Mick Heslin farms in a special area of conservation in nearby Clooneigh.
“We have a lot of turloughs in the area and nobody fully understands how they work. It’s a complex underground system,” said Heslin, who is happy to see all political parties now aligned to ban fracking.
According to him, the jobs and taxes expected from fracking would be “short-term gain for long-term pain.”
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: