THE state appeals court in New York has this week ruled that its towns can prohibit fracking; this brings a fresh perspective to the reports of Scotland's shale oil and gas reserves and suggests the Scottish Government could, if it so wished, consider a much stronger precautionary approach to industries involved in unconventional gas extraction in the future ("Experts are divided on potential for shale oil and gas", The Herald, July 1).
Global warming impacts of such energy sources will contribute to significant public health as well as social and economic damage but neither England nor Scotland has an expert panel set up specifically to assess the public health impacts of shale gas and oil or any other energy sources. Scotland relies on a review report from Public Health England with regard to how unconventional gas (UG) may affect health. That report has been challenged by many, including a recent critique in the British Medical Journal. The same report makes reference to effective UK regulatory regimes yet does not properly evidence that opinion and nor is it competent to do so.
In England, Government ministers continue to assert the shale gas industry will be strongly regulated as the UK regimes are the best in the world and that the industry has a good track record on health, safety and environmental matters elsewhere in the world. This is incorrect. One UK regulatory body recently produced a discussion paper on offshore and onshore oil where it acknowledged that "as unconventional gas was not an issue when the UK implemented the EU Directive (92/91, on mineral extraction through drilling) we now need to bring this activity within the scope of our legislation". They did not even seem to be sure that unconventional gas was covered by the Borehole Regulations and Offshore Wells Design and Construction Regulations 1996. This is an amazing admission at this stage and indicates that UK statements about regulation being strong are simply wrong and indeed no regulations may apply in some sectors. Combined with reports over the last six months emerging of failures in industry practices relating to UK borehole maintenance and other health, safety and environment breaches globally by the UG industry, the English assessment looks deeply flawed.
The UK Government, meanwhile, retains the lead role for the UK within the European Commission on policies, for example on endocrine disruptors that may be used in or produced by the extraction of shale gas through fracking and in coal bed methane extraction. US Government agencies have a list of more than 800 potential endocrine-disrupting chemicals in their country. US researchers have recently identified more than 100 of these disruptors present around UG extraction sites. Yet the UK Government is still failing to support French and Swedish government calls for the European Commission to implement its 2012 policies on these substances by producing criteria to identify endocrine disruptors and to remove those where no safe exposure levels can be established. But Scotland is well placed to adopt public health policies through its planning process and could ensure its citizens are not exposed to such chemicals used in shale gas and oil extraction that have not yet been assessed.
Professor Andrew Watterson,
Director of the Centre for Public Health and Population Health Research and Head of the Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group, University of Stirling.
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