Both the provincial government and companies have failed Alberta resident Ann Craft in two separate incidents involving fracking and toxic wastewater. Andrew Nikiforuk reports that Craft found her options for redress to be limited and a system that favours unrestrained oil and gas interests.
In 2012, a seismic-like event lifted up the deck of Craft’s mobile home in central Alberta. She believes it was caused by Houston-based Quicksilver Resources and their shallow gas drilling and fracking program for four nearby coal seam wells. Months later, a trucking company delivered a batch of contaminated water containing sour crude oil to Craft’s cistern. Craft showered with the water and her health has been seriously affected by that.
Alberta Environment and the Alberta Energy Regulator failed to fully investigate and resolve either incident.
So Craft’s son found Calgary lawyer Glenn Solomon to take on her case. Nikiforuk reports, “Solomon warned [the son] that suing oil and gas companies was not only ‘scary’ but expensive. Solomon added that suing oil and gas regulators in addition to companies was tantamount to declaring World War Three. [The lawyer also said] companies typically settled fracking incidents out of court so they could frack again with limited regulatory consequences. …As a consequence of Solomon’s blunt assessment of the legal system, Craft decided only to sue the company that delivered the toxic water to her home.”
The Council of Canadians expresses its solidarity with Craft and finds this situation intolerable and unacceptable.
To read Andrew Nikiforuk’s full account of Craft’s experience, please read his article Ann Craft’s Fracking Nightmare: A Top Lawyer’s Startling Counsel in the Tyee.ca. Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow encourages you to read Nikiforuk’s powerful article that details a “top lawyer explaining how fracking companies ride roughshod over people whose water wells they have contaminated!”.
