Fracking company complains about anti-fracking leaflet

The leaflet highlights risks to communities across the country, and uses a case study of our work supporting communities in Lancashire to oppose Cuadrilla’s application to frack in the county.

It asks supporters to donate to Friends of the Earth so we can continue our campaigning work, including to stop fracking across the country. They claim the leaflet is “misleading” on a number of points I’ll outline in more detail below.

Anti-fracking campaigners under attack

What’s interesting is that this is one of a number of stories in the past week or so that seem designed to undermine the credibility of those campaigning to stop fracking. It’s no surprise to see this happening, as the anti-fracking movement really has been getting in the way of Government and industry plans.

Fracking has now been put on hold in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland because of the concerns about risks to the environment and public health.  In England, because communities and councils have said “no thanks” to this risky and controversial process to get yet more climate-changing fossil fuels out of the ground, no fracking has gone ahead in over four years. Meanwhile a YouGov poll suggests that public opinion has shifted, with support for fracking now outweighed by opposition.[1]

Right now Cuadrilla has a job on its hands to try to overturn the democratic decision of Lancashire County Council to reject their two fracking applications. The only way that fracking could now go ahead in Lancashire is against the wishes of its residents, two thirds of whom support a moratorium.[2]  Spurious stories like these are a distraction from this fact, and the serious risks posed by fracking to climate, people and the environment.

What is Cuadrilla saying?

Friends of the Earth has not yet seen any complaint submitted by Cuadrilla to the Advertising Standards Authority, but Cuadrilla did write to us outlining their objections to our leaflet.

They claimed that the leaflet is misleading on the issues of toxic chemicals, groundwater contamination, and on what any money raised by Friends of the Earth will be used for.  Taking these in turn:

No denial of risks from fracking

Cuadrilla’s main objection is not that all of these risks of fracking do not exist, but to allege that every fact in the leaflet about fracking in general could all be inferred to apply to Cuadrilla’s specific plans to frack in Lancashire. This is on the grounds that Lancashire is used as a case study in the leaflet of where fracking has been halted.

This is a red herring as our leaflet is clearly about the risk from fracking across the country, which is the basis of our appeal for support, and not about Cuadrilla’s specific applications. It has been distributed nationally and asks people for support to stop fracking impacting on communities elsewhere, based on the success in our work supporting communities to halt fracking in Lancashire.

Toxic chemicals in fracking?

Cuadrilla says Friends of the Earth can’t say toxic chemicals are used in fracking, because these would not be allowed by the Environment Agency. They have their facts wrong on this. It is what the agency considers to be “hazardous” chemicals (a higher risk grade) that they do not allow.[3] In fact, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled in 2013 that Cuadrilla could not say that “fracturing fluid does not contain hazardous or toxic components”, even if Cuadrilla itself had not used toxic chemicals to date, on the basis that these substances could be used in the future, and during drilling the well.[4]

It’s a good point – we don’t know for certain what fracking would look like in the UK, because it hasn’t really happened yet. Hopefully it never will. But in the US, where fracking has happened on a large scale, we know more. An investigation by members of the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce found more than 750 chemical products used by leading fracking companies contained more than 650 carcinogenic, hazardous or restricted substances.It also found 279 products with elements protected by trade or intellectual property secrets – so we can’t be sure what they contain.[5]

But what about Cuadrilla itself? The company has permission from the Environment Agency to use polyacrylamide in Lancashire[6]. Polyacrylamide can be a source of acrylamide, which is a probable human carcinogen[7]  – and therefore toxic. The claim, made by Cuadrilla CEO Francis Egan in The Times, that this presents no risk because of the fact that high temperatures are required to break it down to release the acrylamide, doesn’t bear scrutiny.

Why? Because even if polyacrylamide is not broken down it can still contain residual acrylamide which can be released into the environment, according to the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).[8] Rather than address this, Cuadrilla like to point out that polyacrylamide is used for everyday purposes, for example in contact lens solution. This is a diversion – the risk from polyacrylamide doesn’t come from skin contact, it comes from being ingested into the body. Contact lens solution isn’t something you would want ending up in a cup of tea.

Finally, perhaps even more worryingly than what is put into the ground, is what comes out as a result of the process of breaking up rocks deep underground.

According to the Medact report ‘Health and Fracking’:

“Surface and ground water can also be contaminated by gas, fracking fluid, or wastewater which consists of original fracking fluid combined with a range of new materials generated from underground (including lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium; and naturally occurring radioactive material).The health effects of these different hazards vary depending on the type and pattern of human exposure. But they include increased risks of cancer, respiratory disease and birth defects” [9]

Fracking and sand – risks to fracking workers from silica inhalation

As we also mentioned in our response to Cuadrilla’s claims that they wouldn’t be allowed to use toxic chemicals, they used 440 tonnes of sand, a significant proportion of which is silica, to frack at Preese Hall.[10] The media had a field day misrepresenting our response with one sentence taken out of context. They also ignored serious evidence that silica used in fracking operations in the US has been shown to pose a silicosis and lung cancer risk  – leading the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue a hazard alert.[11] This is because, as the US authorities acknowledge, processes can cause substantial amounts of silica dust to be generated, which can then be breathed in.

It is disappointing that the Times story (£) conflates lying on sand on a beach – clearly not dangerous – and fracking workers exposed to conditions where they breathe in levels above occupational silica exposure standards.  This makes as much sense as saying you cannot drown in water because we drink it. The risk to the health and safety of workers should be properly investigated, not made a mockery of.

Risk to drinking water

Cuadrilla also complain that we say fracking could contaminate drinking water. Again, they do not argue that this is not in fact a risk of fracking. Instead they say that our leaflet implies their specific plans in Lancashire could contaminate drinking water nearby, because Lancashire is mentioned elsewhere in the leaflet.

On the contrary, our leaflet is raising concerns about the potential risk to drinking water across the country if fracking is allowed to go ahead. Friends of the Earth is particularly concerned about this risk following the Government’s U-turn on its promise to protect drinking water from fracking. Regulations are shortly to go through Parliament which, if passed, would allow fracking wells to be drilled straight through aquifers that supply drinking water, as well as in National Parks[12].

Among those who have highlighted the potential for fracking to contaminate groundwater are Lord Smith, former Chair of the Environment Agency, who has said that groundwater contamination is the “biggest environmental risk” from fracking[13]; the British Geological Society[14]; and even the Government, which has also pointed to risks of groundwater contamination in its previously redacted draft DEFRA report[15].

Fracking fundraiser as moneymaker? Hardly…

Finally, Cuadrilla also object to the fact that we let our supporters know that funds raised will be used to support our campaigning work, which includes but isn’t solely restricted to our work to stop fracking, despite the leaflet’s focus on fracking. This is standard practice that allows us to spend our funds where most needed.

However, anyone thinking of donating in order to support our work to stop fracking can be assured that we will be spending more money on stopping fracking than this leaflet, combined with any other fundraising materials that mention fracking, will raise.  We are not ‘using’ fracking as some kind of moneymaker as the suggestion from Cuadrilla seems to be. We campaign to stop fracking because we believe fracking should be stopped. We are, of course, also undertaking all of the campaigning activities used as examples in the leaflet.

Friends of the Earth’s funding comes overwhelmingly from small donations made by generous members of the public who care about protecting the environment, and we are serious about putting the money to good use to protect our planet.  Unfortunately, some of those small donations are presently having to be spent on legal advice about this complaint, reducing the support we can give to communities fighting fracking on their doorstep. If you’d like to support our work, you can donate to Friends of the Earth.

What you can do

Please share this blog with anyone who may have concerns following recent stories about our leaflet in the press. But perhaps more importantly, please write to your MP to ask them to oppose fracking in drinking water areas. MPs are expected to vote on this in the next couple of days – it’s crucial that this outrageous plan is stopped. And please do everything you can to support the communities of Yorkshire and Lancashire, who are currently fighting fracking applications.

As the UN environment programme has said, it is still not clear whether fracking can be done without unavoidable environmental impacts.[16] On this basis alone, England should follow the rest of the UK in establishing a moratorium until more research has been done. However, the fact is that, globally, 80% of known fossil fuels need to stay in the ground if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change – this is the biggest risk to the safety of both people and nature. Fracking is quite simply the wrong direction for the UK to take.

For a full version of this blog with references please download this pdf.