What the frack?

The word gives me the creeps. Starting with its eerie “fr” alliteration (like the hiss of a dangerous beast), leading through to its flat “a”, which sounds like something is stuck in your throat, ending in a hideous “ck” sound as if trying to spit out, but something is in the way, blocking the deposit from coming out. Frack. Phonetically it is the equivalent of the Afrikaans word vrek — to die (especially in relation to nature: plants and animals). This must surely be more than a mere coincidence — perhaps words really do say what they mean. And judging from the bad press fracking is receiving across the world (justifiably so), death and destruction indeed follow fracking closely wherever it goes.

Fracking is the colloquial term for the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing — a process that involves injecting millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand under high pressure into the earth in order to break up rock formations and release natural gas trapped inside. This much is probably well-known to many readers in South Africa by now because fracking has come to South Africa — with a vengeance. But perhaps what is less well-known is how the process actually works and what its consequences have been where it has been used elsewhere.

Here is a description of the fracking process from an article by Christopher Bateman published in Vanity Fair June 21 2010: “When a well is fracked, a small earthquake is produced by the pressurised injection of fluids, fracturing the rock around the well. The gas trapped inside is released and makes its way to the surface along with about half of the “fracking fluid” plus dirt and rock that are occasionally radioactive. From there, the gas is piped to nearby compressor stations that purify it and prepare it to be piped (and sometimes transported in liquefied form) to power plants, manufacturers and domestic consumers. Volatile organic compounds (carbon-based gaseous substances with a variety of detrimental health effects) and other dangerous chemicals are burned off directly into the air during this on-site compression process. Meanwhile, the returned fracking fluid, now called wastewater, is either trucked off or stored in large, open-air, tarp-lined pits on site, where it is allowed to evaporate. The other portion of the fluid remains deep underground — no one really knows what happens to it … every shale-gas well that is fracked requires between three and eight million gallons of water. Fleets of trucks have to make hundreds of trips to carry the fracking fluid to and from each well site.”

Bateman goes on to show the devastating impact fracking has had on environments in which it has been allowed: water is so contaminated that it becomes unfit for any kind of consumption by plants, animals or humans. In some cases, wells even spontaneously combusts because of all the harmful chemical content. People have to evacuate their dwellings because the methane levels rise to critical levels. Those who have suffered exposure to the contaminated water develop aggressive malignant tumours. This means that previously perfectly inhabitable, feasible agricultural land turns into useless, desolate wasteland as inhabitants are forced to leave their land which has become worthless. In short, fracking represents a complete and utter environmental disaster. If you want visible proof, do as Bateman recommends, type in “San Juan Basin, New Mexico” into Google Maps and click on the satellite view to see an area that has been transformed entirely by fracking. To see how it has affected people’s lives watch this web video.

Now imagine that happening in the Karoo … and remember that the company which is promising this won’t happen in the Karoo because it will use a “safe” fracking method is none other than Shell — a company with one of the most atrocious environmental and human-rights records in the world.

But onto legal matters. Section 24 of the South African Constitution clearly provides that “[e]veryone has the right — (a) to an environment that is not harmful to their health or wellbeing; and (b) to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that — (i) prevent pollution and ecological degradation; (ii) promote conservation; and (iii) secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development”. Based on past evidence, there is every reason to believe that Shell’s proposed fracking of the Karoo constitutes (at the very least) a prima facie violation of the right to a harmless environment and of the right to have that environment protected. In this sense, this is as much a human-rights issue as it is an environmental issue. One can only hope that if the government ignores the public outcry and allows Shell to go ahead, the affected parties will have the courage to go to court and that the courts will show the necessary rigour when it comes to the protection of the right to a safe environment.

Years ago, when disgraced German philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote in an essay titled “The Question Concerning Technology” about how man has come to think of nature purely as a standing reserve, as stockpile or potential energy to be extracted and used, many thought that he was exaggerating. It is only in this time of the relentless march of post-millennium capitalism that we come to see exactly how prophetic Heidegger was. Today capitalism has set upon nature in a radically nihilistic way — that is, it has set upon nature with the (albeit unconscious) aim to not only destroy it but ironically to destroy itself. And it seems as if contemporary humanity’s fate is that it will have to witness this destruction right down to its last dark moment. Fracking is but another horrendous exercise in the radical nihilism of late capitalism — a radical nihilism that can only be stopped by human intervention, which is becoming more and more urgent, lest we are indeed doomed to silently witness the disaster as it takes place before our very eyes.