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Australian Member of Parliament Jeremy Buckingham told RT that fracking should be banned because it is a “global threat” that people should be truly frightened about.
Buckingham explained that fracking causes methane leaks to contaminate water affecting nearby communities.
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But that's not all, as he warned that, “Along with this methane and this flammable gas you also have the variety of different chemicals that cause a variety of different health effects.”
The Australian lawmaker literally set a river on fire to illustrate how dangerous fracking is and how it ruins rivers.
“This gas is leaking out of the ground because of the fracking. They have thousands of gas wells around this river, around this site. They drill, they frack, but the gas isn’t just flowing up their gas wells, it’s coming through the ground,” he said. He said that fracking site is operated by the Australian Origin Energy company, who he said “should be condemned for polluting one of our most important rivers.”
He accused the huge global oil companies that extract gas through fracking of lying to people that their technology is safe, while the truth is that they contribute massively to pollution of the areas where they work.
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The legislator mentioned the Australian Condamine river in the state of Queensland as an example, as there is a fracking site nearby that has completely contaminated the waterway.
“What we are waiting in Australia is a moratorium on fracking,” Buckingham said, reiterating that fracking should be seen as what it is: a global threat that is spreading instead of being controlled and this should “terrify” the whole world.
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RT then quoted Calvin Tillman, a co-founder of ShaleTest and former mayor of Dish, Texas, as agreeing with Buckingham.
“It’s insane to think that the river would just catch on fire, that the water would just catch on fire because of this,” he said, referring to the Queensland river.
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Tillman told RT said the fracking industry, which portrays the practice as safe, should focus on taking responsibility for the damages they've caused to the Earth's environment instead of marketing their activities as environmentally friendly.
The negative impact from living next to the gas wells is not confined only to methane pollution and risks of explosions, as many other dangerous substances are coming through the ground in the process of fracking, experts have warned.
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Tillman, who has first-hand experience of living by the gas wells, explained his decision to step down as mayor after observing the worsening ecological situation brought on by fracking in a Texan town with 60 gas wells.
He said at least 200 had complained of nosebleeds and poor circulation since the establishment of the first compressor station in 2005.
He also said there were widely known incidents in Dish in which “water well houses have actually exploded and severely burnt people,” adding that it is “an obvious issue” there.
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