Dutch protest against Shell, Exxon fracking

$Pieterzijl protest against fracking, photo by RTV Noord | Marco Grimmon$

This photo shows today’s protest against fracking in Pieterzijl, a village on the border of Groningen and Friesland provinces in the Netherlands. The banner says: Don’t let Friesland down. Behind it, the flag of Groningen province.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

About one hundred people have taken action at Pieterzijl

160 people live in Pieterzijl village.

against the latest drilling site of the NAM.

The NAM is a joint venture of Shell and Exxon Big Oil corporations. Their gas drilling has caused very much damage in Groningen and in Drenthe provinces.

They are afraid of still more earthquakes and protest against gas extraction through fracking. In fracking, also called hydraulic cracking, gas is extracted from deep underground by adding chemicals.

At the end of last month, Minister Wiebes decided that the gas drilling in Groningen should stop before 2030. At the same time it became known that the NAM at Pieterzijl is allowed to extract gas by means of fracking until 2025. According to Wiebes, this method is completely safe. Local residents of Pieterzijl do not agree with this.

Poison in the soil

Alderman Henk Bakker of Zuidhorn local authority said to RTV Noord broadcasting organisation: “We do not think that exploitation of this gas field is sensible, and we do not want fracking at all: poison in the soil is never sustainable.”

Last night, an earthquake of 2.8 was reported at Garsthuizen, about forty kilometers from Pieterzijl. Approximately twenty damage reports have been received.

ExxonMobil gas project a disaster for Papua New Guinea’s people: here.

Exposure to fracking chemicals and wastewater promotes fat cell development, or adipogenesis, in laboratory cell models, a new study finds. Researchers observed increases in the size and number of fat cells after exposing the models to a mixture of 23 common fracking chemicals or to wastewater or surface-water samples containing them, even at diluted concentrations. Adipogenesis occurred through PPARy-dependent and independent mechanisms. More research is needed to assess potential health impacts outside the laboratory: here.

Buried UK government report finds fracking increases air pollution. Report was with ministers in 2015 but only published three years later, days after a key fracking permit was awarded: here.

Britain: Most Tory councillors oppose fracking, new survey reveals. THE government’s support for fast-tracking fracking is being opposed by the vast majority of its own Tory councillors, a new poll suggests: here.

USA: The amount of water used per well for fracking surged by up to 770 percent between 2011 and 2016 in all major US shale gas- and oil-producing regions, a new study finds. The volume of flowback and produced water that new wells generated during their first year of operation also increased by up to 1,440 percent. If this rapid intensification continues, fracking’s water footprint could grow by up to 50-fold by the year 2030: here.

Elevated concentrations of strontium, an element associated with oil and gas wastewaters, have accumulated in the shells of freshwater mussels downstream from fracking wastewater disposal sites: here.