Moratorium on fracking needed

BlueCrest Energy came to Homer on May 17 to have a meeting sponsored by Cook InletKeeper and on June 14 had a town hall meeting in Ninilchik. Few people attended because very few know of BlueCrest’s extensive plans for the Cosmo Project to hydraulic frack 3.5 miles into Cook Inlet from their onshore facility right next to Stariski Creek, Mile 151 Sterling Highway. This location isn’t far from the East rip that runs along our coastline where our valuable sockeye salmon run and in a very volatile earthquake zone.

Their plans are to begin no later than November, yet they still cannot give us a plan for where they will be getting their water. We are talking 1-15 million gallons of water per well that is infused with many chemicals, some known to be toxic and cancer causing. Their plan is for 20 wells over a 30-year period. This is just one company. How can the Kenai Peninsula sustain this amount of precious water over this extensive period of time? Where will all this wastewater go? Storage and contamination can become a big issue as we have seen through fracking around the world.

The plan is to haul the oil in big tanker trucks, 24/7 up and down our two-lane, pristine coastal highway that folks from around the world come to experience. How many trucks will it take to haul off the millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater?

Our concerned citizens group, Stop Fracking Kenai Peninsula, is calling for a moratorium until the health and environmental consequences can be responsible reviewed and the public can be fully informed of the risks.

Deborah Limacher