I can’t remember a day passing over the past couple of weeks without the subject of fracking being in the news. It appears to be an extremely controversial subject that is getting vehement support from the Government and bitter protests from environmentalists.

Many people see protesters portrayed in the press as the great unwashed, rich kids with nothing better to do or indeed, just hangers on looking for a party or a flare up with the police. However, I see protest as a healthy way of forcing a middle ground with environmental issues and not letting companies such as Quadrilla get away with (if they were inclined too) cutting corners in a bid for resources.

It may well be that Quadrilla are an environmentally conscious company, I really don’t know but as has happened in the past, it may also be a company with strong links to front bench ministers in desperate need of party funding or future directorships. The problem with these major projects always seems to be the lack of transparency which leads to inevitable fears.

Every time a Government backs an enterprise with such vigour I am suspicious and a look at the list of Knighthood’s offered/sold over the past twenty years would suggest that I am right to be as well. Where there is money to be made there will always be a self-serving minister somewhere who will paper over the cracks (quite literally in this case) for his own or his party’s benefit; it is an historical fact.

From what I have read, the earthquake issues are minimal, below one per cent and even then we are talking about non-structural minor tremors at worst. To me the more serious issue would appear to be water the contamination issues and 24 hour noise pollution. I have enough trouble with Chinooks flying twenty foot above my roof without a fucking great drill burrowing into the ground as I try to get to sleep.

There are other issues too, as there are bound to be resources that need to be tapped into under towns and cities which, now don’t quote me on this, would surely cause yet more problems with road works, spillages or leaks wouldn’t it?

Fracking for resources seems logical in so many ways but Britain is such a tiny and densely populated area it would appear difficult to get to a situation where drilling companies planning widespread exploration aren’t going to really piss people off. We just don’t have vast areas of open space like in America or Australia and that is the real issue here in the UK.

Imagine a scenario where you had spent your life saving for the house of your dreams in a quintessential English village only to find out that a fucking great drill was going to be installed across the road. To make matters worse, imagine lorry after lorry carrying contaminated water  rumbling through your village day and night. You’d be pissed off and rightly so.

Imagine that as your noisy view every morning

I found this interesting interview with Mark Boling a President of an American exploration company and the problems they had in the States.

 “We need to think more innovatively above the ground. We need to figure how to do better on surface impacts, water supply, water transfer and disposal, drilling locations – we really didn’t come out and say, ‘yes, these are risks, and there are obstacles’.”

“You are going to have even more difficulty where the minerals are owned by the Crown – if you don’t have something that is going to put money in the pockets of people that are suffering through all the trucks, road damage the compressor noise all these sorts of things.”

Did you read that? Compressor noise…road damage…trucks…

That is why I think protesting is a good thing because fracking will still go ahead in some form and hopefully we will be economically stronger for it. However, it will not be without additional scrutiny because of the general public who are now far more alert to the consequences.

Environmental issues need to be brought to the surface just as much as gas and oil does.

I know for sure that if a drilling field arrived on my doorstep without consultation, I would be fracking furious!