Ottawa Citizen: Environment Canada asks industry to come clean on hydraulic fracking

Environment Canada wants oil and gas companies to come clean about the unidentified fluids they inject deep underground to extract natural gas.In newly released correspondence obtained by Postmedia News, the department’s top official told the main Canadian oil and gas lobby group that the government needed more information about the industrial process, commonly known as fracking: fracturing shale rock formations underground with fluids to extract the gas.

Paul Boothe, the former deputy minister, wrote that a new industry voluntary disclosure program was a “positive step” toward improving environmental performance, increasing transparency and the “use of fluids with the least environmental risk.” 

But his letter to Dave Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, also suggested the environment department, which has authority to regulate toxic substances under existing environmental laws, wasn’t satisfied.  MORE