Pincher Creek Sour Gas Update

Published Monday, January 14, 2008 by Dan Gainsford | E-mail this post

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More from my friend Ken up in Alberta, d
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Hi, I'm sending this out to all of you who were aware of a struggle I was somewhat involved in, as a member of 'Friends of Mt Bacchus" in trying to prevent Shell from sinking yet another sour gas well in around the Mt Bacchus area, just north of Beaver Mines. There's a larger issue at stake in this, and some news has been devoted to it: the role of the EUB (Energy and Utility Board) of Alberta and how they've gone as far as to spy on citizens and citizen groups, etc. Having been caught, they are now 'restructuring' -- but there's been a hot campaign across the province to resist that, as it's seen as entrenching it's powers to operate without accountability. All this of course is part of the larger question of whether Canada is becoming a petro-state, ruled by petrodollars, and what the writer Thomas Friedman coined "The First Law of Petropolitics":

The price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions in oil-rich petrolist states. According to the First Law of Petropolitics, the higher the average global crude oil price rises, the more free speech, free press, free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, and independent political parties are eroded. And these negative trends are reinforced by the fact that the higher the price goes, the less petrolist leaders are sensitive to what the world thinks or says about them.

Anyway, here's the local update on where the struggle over the sour gas well is:

Click Here: Article

Ken

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