Fracking company INEOS wants to dump filthy fracking wastewater into the sea.
Fracking works by blasting huge volumes of water, chemicals and sand deep into the ground, where it mixes with naturally occurring radioactive material. Around a third of that chemical-laden, radioactive mix then flows back up to the surface -- and fracking companies need to then get rid of it.
But how? Well, INEOS, which wants to become the UK’s biggest fracking firm, says it plans to pump it into our seas.
INEOS already holds 21 fracking licences across the country. Let’s tell the company there’s no fracking way we’ll stand by while it pollutes our amazing marine environments for its own profit!
INEOS: don't degrade our marine environment with your filthy fracking waste!
The industry claims the wastewater can be safely treated before it’s disposed of. But it hasn’t said how it plans to clean radioactive water loaded with chemicals and dissolved solids. And experts are worried that it can’t be done. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management says it is “concerned about the ability to treat flowback fluid at the present time”.
Thousands of communities across the UK are facing the threat of fracking. The shale oil and gas boom in the US has led to contaminated drinking water, air pollution, health problems from headaches to cancer, multiple earthquakes, water shortages and rocketing greenhouse gas emissions.
And now fracking companies are saying they want to contaminate our sensitive marine environments too. We can’t let it happen -- and we won’t. Hundreds of thousands of us have stepped up before to stop forced fracking under our homes. We need to come together again now to save our seas from filthy fracking.
Let’s tell INEOS not to pump filthy fracking water into our seas.
More information
The Guardian. 15 June 2016.