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DISCUSSION PAPER FEEDBACK FORM

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3) To what extent do you agree with the accuracy of the Discussion Paper? Please select.

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4) Are there any topics that were omitted that you would like to see included in future versions? Please list.

Not Topics that I would like to see addressed but when the environmental review talks about tens of thousands of wells having been hydraulically fractured that number should actually be hundreds of thousands of wells in North America. 33,000 wells were drilled in texas between 2007 and 2012. When I was in New Orleans for the ground water protection agency underground injection conference in feb 2014, the representative from the railroad commission in texas said they were at a point where 96 % of the producing wells in any one year were being hydraulically fractured.

There are a variety of economic assumptions that I have trouble with. There seems to be a fear that NG will be too inexpensive. Nova Scotia has some of the most expensive power in north America. More locally sourced natural gas would help reduce it’s price and make NS power a better bargain for industry. One of the big costs that has been troubling the local pulp and paper industry has been electricity. A reduction in electricity costs would also provide every consumer in the province with more disposable income. I’m also unclear on how much worse rural property values in Nova Scotia could get. If a few more big employers leave or go bankrupt that will only get worse.

I do appreciate the fact that you acknowledge that contamination tends to most of the risk of contamination occurs as a result of gas migrating to surface through faulty wellbores and liquids contaminating water from surface spills.

One of the universal fears that appears to be out there is that hydraulic fracturing fluids at depth somehow migrate to surface. All the studies I have seen , including the cornell study that showed more gas in well water nearer to areas where hydraulic fracturing took place, the Arkansas study on aquifer water quality, the ohio root cause analysis of water quality complaints and even the BAPE report from Quebec acknowledged that the migration of liquids from depth from hydraulic fracturing operations was not a credible threat. The cornell study I believe suggested it was physically impossible for that liquid migration to take place. I guess I’d like to see some acknowledgement that this specific fear is not a real world problem.

There are a lot of quotes in your paper of people saying things that simply aren’t true.

Saying that people have a fundamental universal wisdom doesn’t make the false statements true. I’m not sure how you evaluated how well informed the 238 citizens who made submissions were. I’d say my whole experience with resistance to hydraulic fracturing has shown a huge non- rational reaction to hydraulic fracturing that has grown out of people using the film Gasland as a source of information.

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Name: Scott Weldon Email:[email protected]

Thank you!