The opposition to fracking has been quieter, but no less vigilant in Nova Scotia, where a two-year hold on hydraulic fracturing expires in April.
Meanwhile, residents of East Hants are still dealing with the aftermath of three wells fracked almost six years ago.
In 2007 and 2008, a Denver-based company called Triangle Petroleum fracked three exploratory wells in the Kennetcook area.
Almost six years later, millions of litres of briny, contaminated water line holding ponds at two of the three sites, and the company and province have long been at odds on how to clean it.
“We wanted to take it to Debert and out through the sewage system and into the open ocean,” Peter Hill, executive chairman of Triangle Petroleum, told CTV News via phone. “Perfectly acceptable industrial practice and we were stopped from doing that.”
The province has filed a compliance order, forcing the company to cover the site.
Hill says the company would like to force the wastewater back into the ground, which he says is a common practice in the industry, but there is still no plan in place.
“It is fairly complicated and there is a lot of science behind this and that often takes time to figure out,” says Derek DeGrass of the Nova Scotia Department of Environment.
Erin Coldrick is a local small business owner who grew up in the area. She belongs to the East Hants Fracking Opposition group, whose members have photographed and documented dead animals around the pond.
“I want to raise my daughter in a clean community. I want to raise her where she can go outside and breathe the air and drink our water out of the well,” says Coldrick.
“I would willingly swim in that stuff along with anyone that would care to join me,” says Hill.
But many local residents don’t share Hill’s confidence.
“I know a lady in the village, after they started fracking, her water turned to an orangey colour,” says resident Marie Anthony.
Jennifer West, a geoscience coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre, is also opposed to the practice.
“If this stage was successful, the next stage would have required 680 wells to be drilled from Truro to Wolfville in order for this to be economical,” says West. “So really, you’d be looking at an industrialized landscape in this area.”
Hill says Nova Scotia is sitting on a vast deposit of natural gas and he still hopes to do business in the province.
“I think it’s a social issue we have to sort out, but I think if we explain it fully and see the dilemma of energy and the requirements and the benefits this stuff can bring, I think an orchestrated program going forward could well take place in the next 18 months,” says Hill.
Meanwhile, the Nova Scotia Fracking Resource and Action Coalition is asking the province for an outright ban, or a 10-year moratorium on fracking.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Jayson Baxter
