Media in China are covering the spreading of drilling and hydraulic fracturing waste on farms in Taranaki and report that the New Zealand dairy industry is facing a condundrum.
A report by the Xinhua agency says Taranaki is home to both a thriving oil and dairy industry.
"For years they remained distinct,'' it says, ''but the pressures to expand and intensify in both fields are seeing a cross-over that critics claim could be the source of future concerns for food exporters".
Taranaki Regional Council has allowed waste produced during fracking, known as frac-flow-back fluid, to be applied to farmland.
It's a practice that's deemed unsuitable for agricultural land in other parts of the world - including in Alberta, Canada - whose example the council claims to be following.
5 comments:
Age of Stupid indeed. I've commented on this highly suspect practice quite a few times on a certain rural blog. It's farcical for RWNJs to claim the Greens will ruin NZ's economy, when the same dumb, greedy bastards are destroying any brand advantage this country once had.
I guess they're figuring that the shallow-rooted grasses they use won't reach down to the fracking-fluids zone, so there's nothing to worry about.
Yes and if you kill off the earthworms and other soil life you aren't expecting anything to move around under the ground. I think there are 2 different versions of what they say they do with the fracking waste, one claims its buried and the other that it is spread on top. I need to double check that from saved pages on my home pc, but that is what I recall.
Petrochemicals and soil organisms aren't good bedmates and it's the living things that suffer. Who knows what other toxic crap is in the fracking-fluids mix. None of it, I suspect, would be vermi-beneficial.
According to an industry spokesman on a RNZ Insight programme the fracking fluids are no more harmful than the contents of our bathroom and laundry cupboards. That's bullshit, they use gluteraldehyde which is carcinogenic and no longer used as a disinfectant because it is harmful to health. As for household cleaners, there are some nasty ones around that you certainly wouldn't want to pour on your garden or put in your water.
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