AS an SNP voter, I find it exceedingly worrying to hear that the party are intending to water down the moratorium on fracking (“SNP rift widens as fracking motion is watered down”, The Herald, October 8).
It is significant that the term "water down" is used here as fracking for gas is ultimately about water.
Over the average life of a single fracking well, hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh water are used to facilitate the fracturing process underground. This water is then returned to the surface and is so permanently polluted that it can never be returned to the water system and must be stored on site in growing amounts. The safe disposal of the resulting toxic sludge left over after evaporation is already a growing problem.
The act of fracking – fracturing layers of bed rock underground – also shatters artesian rivers and water routes which for millennia have channelled our essential water tables, in some cases surface river beds have cracked and the river has vanished, in others the toxic fracking solutions have poured into once clear river ways.
Jim Ratcliffe, the chairman of Ineos, wants to build a huge fracking industry in the Central Belt – the area of the country with the greatest population. He lives in Switzerland, where fracking is banned.
Many of the companies seeking licences to frack in the UK are French. France has banned fracking.
I ask Nicola Sturgeon to pour herself a glass of good Scottish tap water, take a wee sip and have a right good think about banning fracking for good – our good.
John Elder,
14/8 Howden Hall Road, Edinburgh.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel