The Daily Gleaner May 11, 2018
Letters to the editor

GOOD JOB WE DIDN’T FRACK
It goes without saying that thoughts and prayers go out at this time to all New Brunswickers affected by the recent flooding. We can definitely be proud, as a province, of how friends, neighbours, even strangers, have banded together to help one another other in a time of crisis.

In the midst of ongoing accounts of disaster and devastation, however, it remains to be observed how thankful we can be that areas now flooded with untreated river water, sewage and other debris were not also dotted with fracking wells.

In a province where 20 per cent of the population – 100,000 souls to be exact – depend on private wells for their drinking water, imagine the situation (and expense) our provincial government would be facing now if, in addition to the present mess, the clean-up had been complicated by the addition of millions of gallons of toxic wastewater pouring into wells and river from flooded fracking wells?

Ominously, all of the areas in Southern New Brunswick now under water – Grand Lake, Jemseg, Gage-town, Hampstead, Darlings Island, Hampton Valley – were designated zones ripe for fracking with, apparently, little risk or chance of contamination by former premier David Alward and our previous government.

Considering the very real possibility that the degree of flooding we’ve seen in the province this year may in fact be the “new norm,” the absence of fracking wells in the various flood zones must surely be considered a narrow escape rather than a hardship or economic opportunity missed. What’s more, I believe that our present premier, Brian Gallant, deserves a vote of thanks for considering the evidence and ensuring the safety of our province’s land and water with an ongoing fracking moratorium.

CHRIS REIBLING
Saint John