Source: CBC News

Hydraulic fracturing blasts open oil, gas and coal formations with highly pressurized volumes of water, sand and undisclosed chemical fluids or gases. The technology has boosted natural gas reserves but has become the subject of serious government investigations throughout North America due to surface and groundwater contamination.

In Report 2011-A Alberta's primary energy regulator, the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), recently disclosed that the potential for hydraulic fracturing to contaminate useable water aquifers with fracturing fluid chemicals and natural gas is a real public issue, especially in shallow zones.

On April 27, 2011, lawyers representing Jessica Ernst, an oil patch consultant with over five decades of experience, released a 73-page statement of claim that alleges that EnCana broke multiple provincial laws and regulations and contaminated a shallow aquifer used by a rural community with natural gas and toxic industry-related chemicals.

The claim methodically reports how Alberta's two key groundwater regulators, Alberta Environment and the ERCB, "failed to follow the investigation and enforcement processes that they had established and publicized."

"It is worrying that citizens are unable to hold the energy regulator accountable for failing to protect citizens from the harmful impacts of fracking," said Cory Wanless one of the lawyers representing Ernst.