Tag Archives: New Brunswick

Jun 26 2013
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Economy, Energy, Oil and Gas, Politics, Science

On seismic testing, just the facts please

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Those of us who remain curious about the economic potential of onshore tight oil and gas in New Brunswick might as well face it: There is no perfectly safe way to develop an industry that pulls vast quantities of petroleum from the ground. There never has been, and there never will be.

The only thing that matters is identifying the level of risk we are prepared to assume in return for jobs, royalties and tax revenues. And to do this, we need facts. But where are they?

The news media is in its element when it covers controversy. Altercations and recriminations between shale gas protestors along Highway 126 and SWN Resources, which is undertaking exploration there, make headlines. Dispassionate examinations of the claims both for and against the technologies involved more often do not.

And so, we are left sifting through emotionally charged assertions for clues of validity. We are left, for example, parsing this statement from a local resident, whom the CBC quoted in a story the other day: “There’s lots of money in Alberta, but when people come home they don’t want to see this. The money is good, but the money isn’t everything. . .They still put charges of dynamite in the ground and they still blast them.”

He was referring to the practice of seismic testing, which, according to the website naturalgas.org, “artificially (creates) waves, the reflection of which are then picked up by sensitive pieces of equipment called ‘geophones’ that are embedded in the ground.” Essentially, the procedure takes a picture of what lies beneath.

The question, of course, is whether this citizen’s concerns about the potentially catastrophic effects of the process on the water table and broader environment  – which, not incidentally, mirror those of many others in the province – are justified.

Or is Marc Belliveau of the provincial Department of Energy and Mines closer to the truth? Yesterday, he told this newspaper, “There is, unfortunately, a lot of misconceptions of what seismic testing is and what it is not. . .It’s used in making highways, it’s used in finding water sources for municipalities. . .There was seismic testing carried out along more than 500 kilometres in New Brunswick two years ago. . .There were no issues.”

Still, that was then. What about now? Back in the stone age, when I briefly majored in Geology at university, seismic testing was breakthrough technology in the oil and gas industry. And, like all breakthrough technologies – which are, by their natures, intrusive – this one did cause “issues”.

Even today, the procedure can be problematic. Earlier this month, oil and gas companies in the Gulf of Mexico agreed to forgo using the technology over concerns that it may harm marine life. According to a news report from KNOE.com, “Michael Jasny of the Natural Resources Development Council says the (moratorium) will give the government and industry time for required environmental studies and research.”

That said, the best evidence suggests that seismic testing in New Brunswick is about as safe as can be expected given the province’s regulatory framework and SWN’s statement of exploration practice, which appears on its website.

“The vibroseis technique is only used on roadways and provides quality signals with minimal disturbance,” the company declares. “Seismic vibrator trucks are equipped with an underlying vibrating plate to generate specific sound signals. . .The strength of the signal from one seismic vibrator truck is very small; several trucks need to be activated simultaneously to create a signal strong enough to be recorded. These vehicles create noise levels similar to that made by a logging truck.”

When no roads are available, SWN says it deploys the “shot hole technique”. In these instances, the company clears “a maximum three metre-wide path for a drill vehicle in the woods. No vegetation larger than 15 centimeters in diameter is cut. The track-mounted drill vehicle drills a hole 15 metres deep. A small seismic source is placed at the bottom of the hole and is sealed with clay and drill cuttings per provincial regulations. When safely secured, the source is activated with specialized equipment. Afterwards, the area is restored to its original state.”

Whether or not this statement can allay public concern depends entirely on the degree to which one is willing to allow fact to triumph over fear.

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Jun 14 2013
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Education

Focus on educating the very young

He's better off wondering how balloons rise than how fortunes fall

As New Brunswick’s chief, honourary pedagogue, Jody Carr, shops around his draft blueprint to improve the educational denouement of this province, he must realize that his best weapon against creeping academic morbidity rests not with trundling grade-schoolers, but with toddling infants.

Mr. Carr’s title gives him away. He is not only the Minister of Education; he is also the minister responsible for Early Childhood Development. As such, he clearly appreciates what every field researcher has been telling public officials with near nauseating regularity over the past several years: The best, and most cost-effective, way to ensure a child does well in later grades is to invest in his or her education as early and as often as possible.

Indeed, as Mr. Carr acknowledges in his own government’s plan on the subject, titled “Putting Children First: Positioning Early Childhood for the Future,” the experts are definitive: “Their research clearly shows the correlation between the quality of a child’s experience in the early years and his or her success in school – even throughout life. “Eventually, the broader impact of healthy development for our children is stronger families and communities and a stronger, more vibrant province.The foundation of (our) plan is the integration of early childhood development services and

education for children from birth to eight years of age.

“The quality, affordability and accessibility of childcare and other services are built into the plan. We will also focus on ensuring services and education are inclusive – that all children have the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential.”

In fact, he’s so convinced of the efficacy of this approach that he has authorized $38 million of the government’s vanishing resources to “create new early learning and childcare spaces, bringing the total increase to 10,000,” subsidize the salaries of childcare workers, increase the number of support staff, and broaden the system’s accessibility, among other measures.

Still, politics insist that elected representatives must know both how to walk and chew gum. And so, Mr. Carr now spends a good deal of his time putting the finishing touches on a new educational plan for elementary and secondary school systems that, according to news reports, sets specific performance standards for pupils.

According to a recent Telegraph-Journal story, “The department wants 90 per cent of elementary students achieving the expected level of language arts, math and science proficiency on provincial assessments, and 85 per cent of middle school and and high school students attaining the expected levels for their grades.”

This well-intentioned effort is laudable. It may even be necessary. But I can’t help feeling that the emphasis on “outcomes” pegged to rigid performance standards in public schools merely transforms teachers and administrators into mechanics who spend their days fixing broken cars. Ideally, their professional exertions should flow, and receive succour, from a structured, integrated, evidence-based system of pre-school – one that nurtures abilities and identifies problems among kids at the earliest possible stages of their development.

The implications for society extend far beyond the education system.

In a recent syllabus on the broad effects of early years instruction, TD Bank Group’s senior vice president and chief economist Craig Alexander had this to say: “There is a great deal of evidence showing overwhelming benefits of high-quality, early childhood education. For parents, access to quality and affordable programming can help to foster greater labour force participation. But more importantly, for children, greater essential skills development makes it more likely that children will complete high school, go on to post‐secondary education and succeed at that education. This raises employment prospects and reduces duration of unemployment if it occurs.”

In fact, according to his research, for every public dollar invested in early childhood development, the return ranges from roughly $1.5 to almost $3, with the benefit ratio for disadvantaged children being in the double digits.”

When it comes to caring for the youngest in our midst – who will secure the most durable achievements for the province in the future – Mr. Carr’s government is already on the right track. Let it stay there.

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Jun 11 2013
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Business, Economy, Environment, Politics

New Brunswick’s biggest natural resource is fury

Seeing the forest for the trees in hydraulic fracturing

Seeing the forest for the trees in hydraulic fracturing

Those who believe that New Brunswickers are apathetic about their futures need only survey the province for visible signs of outrage, which are everywhere. Apparently, we are mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

The question is: What is the “it” we refuse to “take”?

Once upon a time, it was the sale of NB Power to Hydro-Quebec. The contretemps over that issue brought down a government already reeling from the outcry over its proposals to establish a network of polytechnics in the province and reform French language instruction for Anglophones.

These days, it’s cuts to the public service, education and health care that have ignited the pyres of dissent from Sackville to Edmundston.

No issue, however, is as incendiary as hydraulic fracturing, with its dark promise to pollute and sunder communities wherever the shale gas industry sinks its wells.

Last week, the RCMP arrested three people – about 120 kilometers north of Moncton – who were protesting SWN Resources seismic testing (advance work in the exploration of tight petroleum plays). The cops said the trio refused to make way for trucks. Other observers at the scene said the authorities overreacted.

For his part, Brad Walters a professor of environmental studies professor at Mount A, called it a sign of the times, to which we should grow accustomed. He told  CTV it reflects “a combination of things coming together here. . .There is this network of over 30 groups across the province who are talking to each other and are very strongly opposed to shale gas development.”

Call it the immoveable object that meets an unstoppable force, but opposition to shale gas in this province has become a permanent feature of the landscape. No careful ministrations by the provincial government, promising to enforce the “toughest” regulations in North America – no vows by industry representatives to adhere to only the highest standards of environmental stewardship – are likely to placate the critics.

This worries people like Susan Holt, president and CEO of the New Brunswick Business Council, which commissioned a report, released recently, on the economic potential of shale gas in the province. “Some of the opposition is a little bit disconcerting to industry because it appears to be general industry opposition rather than specific,” she told the Telegraph-Journal’s Chris Morris. “When New Brunswickers resist general industrial activity, that is more nerve-racking for our folks because it begs the question, how do we develop our economy?”

How, indeed?

Legitimate concerns about water and soil degradation and principled stands against fossil fuels warming the planetary orb only partially explain the current antagonism. At the heart of the hostility to shale gas is a position against which there is no defence: People simply detest the idea of it. Onshore petroleum development somehow cuts against the weave of the province’s social fabric.

The identical mental dynamic was at work when potash was first developed. It was in even planer view when wind turbines began dotting the countryside. Lest we forget uranium?

Logic is a blunt instrument of persuasion when passions are running high, as they tend to do when statements from the provincial Department of Energy and Mine declare that “Nine companies hold a Crown license to search and/or lease within New Brunswick. These include a total of 71 rights agreements, covering over 1.4 million hectares, for the exploration and production of oil and natural gas.”

In fact, the Province has spent a good deal of time touting New Brunswick as the undisputed nexus of the emerging tight oil and gas industry in Atlantic Canada. Estimates, it likes to say, peg the volume of natural gas trapped between layers of sedimentary rock hundreds, or even thousands, of meters beneath the soil’s surface at close to 77 trillion cubic feet.

What it – and industry, itself – hasn’t spent much effort doing is reminding New Brunswickers that no one yet knows whether the resource is even commercially viable. Nor have they attempted to explain (until very recently) the safeguards that must attend its extraction and development.

Now, it may be too late to expect a sea change of attitude.

It’s a shame we can’t harness the energy from all the outrage we generate.

If we could, we’d never again worry about the future of our province.

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