Fracking protests are not expected in the Mountain View County area, with area companies working to keep the community informed about activities and projects in the region, according to Tracey McCrimmon, executive director of Sundre Petroleum Operators Group (SPOG).
“We knew that there were concerns and most of those concerns were due to a lack of information and lack of education,” said McCrimmon.
SPOG is a collection of oil and gas companies operating in the Sundre area. It also includes non-voting associate members such as Mountain View County.
It promotes awareness of oil and gas issues through workshops, newsletters and community dialogue, she said.
SPOG officials performed a proactive engagement process that took a year and a half and was completed in June, she said.
“It took us a year and a half to get through it and we addressed all the issues,” she said. “At the end of the day, the things that we thought were the biggest issues all came back to issues that is not necessarily fracking – it's communication.”
There are currently protests against proposed fracking happening in New Brunswick that have gained international news coverage.
McCrimmon said she believes that if companies in New Brunswick followed the same regulations as are in place in Alberta, there would be no problems.
Fracking is the use of high-pressure water and other chemicals pumped down drill holes to break up rock formations, allowing for easier extraction of oil and gas.
SPOG member companies perform three common fracks, including a gelled frack, a surfactant gelled (foam) frack and a slick water frack. A gelled water frack uses 420 car washes' worth of water, a surfactant gelled (foam) frack uses 440 showers' worth of water and a slick water frack uses one Olympic-size swimming pool's worth of water.
Member companies of SPOG try to use recycled water whenever possible, such as runoff and flood water, she said.
“In the SPOG boundary, there were plans for roughly 150 wells to be drilled for 2013. Out of those, probably 80 plus per cent will be multi-stage fracked,” she said.
Water-based fracture fluid is 99.6 per cent water and frack fluid additives are also used in daily household items, she said.
For example, one of the additives used in some fracks is guar bean gum, which is also used as a thickener in cosmetics, toothpaste and sauces. It is a gellant used in some frack fluid as a water viscosifier and it forms gel to suspend sand.
Another additive, called propylene glycol, is also used in cough syrup and food processing. It is used as a carrier fluid antifreeze in some frack fluids to freeze proofing of water-based carrier fluids.
She said SPOG member companies use multi-well pads where possible, and fracking occurs hundreds or thousands of metres below the deepest water aquifer.
Water wells in Central Alberta produce from an average depth of 50 metres and the minimum surface casing depth required is between 265 and 290 metres.
Member companies of SPOG are setting depths averaging 600 metres, she said.
Fracking has been used in Alberta since the 1950s and there has never been a documented case of hydraulic fracturing activities contaminating groundwater in Alberta, she said.
If anyone has any concerns they are asked to call the SPOG office, she said.
