27 June 2013
Over the last few months the EU Environmental Impact Assessment Directive was being reviewed, this is key legislation to direct how Environmental Impact Assessments are to be carried out. There are no structures within the current legislation to take the necessary steps to assess for the environmental impact for unconventional oil and gas extraction methods.
Friends of the Earth Europe have created the letter below for people to send to their MEP's in Europe. Please copy and paste this letter and send it to our MEPs on the Environment Committee before the 4th of July.
- Nessa Childers email- nessa.childers@europarl.europa.eu
- Sarah McGuinness email- mairead.mcguinness@europarl.europa.eu
Dear MEP [NAME], member of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee,
I am writing to ask you to support an inclusion of all unconventional fossil fuels (UFF) activities in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive that is currently being reviewed. On Thursday the 4th of July, the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee of the European Parliament will vote on the proposals made by MEP Andrea Zanoni. His proposals aim to adapt the EIA Directive to a number of new realities, which notably include a potential development of UFF activities in Europe.
I respectfully ask you to:
- Please support the compromise amendmentadding the production (exploration and exploitation) of unconventional fossil fuels (shale gas, tight gas, shale oil, coal bed methane) in the Annex I of the Directive:
- “14a. Exploration, involving deep drilling and /or the application of hydraulic fracturing, and extraction of petroleum and/or natural gas trapped in strata of gas shales or other sedimentary rock formations with similarly low or lower permeability and porosity, independently of the quantity extracted.
14b. Extraction of natural gas from coal seams, independently of the quantity extracted.”
This Amendment follows strong and clear recommendations, which received broad political support in the vote on last year’s European Parliament’s resolutions on shale gas:
- In the own-initiative report on the “Environmental impacts of shale gas and shale gas oil extraction activities”, the European Parliament called “for the inclusion of projects including hydraulic fracturing in Annex I of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive” (§24).
- In the own-initiative report on the “Industrial, energy and other aspects of shale gas and oil”, the European Parliament recommended “mandatory environmental impact assessments” in the licencing and authorisation process (§31) which is the “best way of ensuring the meaningful and timely engagement of local communities” (§34).
This amendment is crucial as the current version of the legislation doesn’t guarantee such systematic and mandatory EIA before new UFF projects:
- Because theyhave a maximum daily production rate of between 115.000 and 250.000 m3, they will never meet the 500.000m3/day threshold mentioned in the existing legislation. As a consequence, no mandatory and systematic EIA for UFF projects can currently be guaranteed.
- Because deep drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques are used all along the process, including during the exploration phase, not only the extraction operations should be targeted, but also the exploration activities.
The poor environmental records of the development of this industry in the US have taught us that:
- It is essential to engage in a systematic gathering of baseline data – with samples of air, water and soil quality– in order to prove the causal link between UFF operations and air and/or water contamination around drilling sites.
- Such industrial developments cannot take place without properly consulting the communities living around potential drilling sites.
If large-scale UFF operations are allowed to go ahead in an unregulated way, this industry will repeat the same mistakes as in the US, with the same dramatic impacts for the climate, environment and public health. I believe it is absolutely vital that this recommendation receivesstrong support, and I look to you to represent my views in this matter for the good of our constituency and of the rest of Europe.
Yours sincerely,
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