Quote from Steve MacLellan on May 31, 2026, 1:20 pm

Jessica Ernst is an environmental consultant in Alberta who has written 93-page report, Brief Review of Threats to Groundwater from the Oil and Gas Industry’s Methane Migration and Hydraulic Fracturing, and it covers a bit of what happened here in Nova Scotia, in 2013. In her report it says:

In Nova Scotia, Colchester County recently decided to allow 4.5 million litres of frac'ing wastewater, stored in open pits for years, to be discharged into the municipal sewer system and on into the Chiganois River and Bay of Fundy. Frac waste had previously been discharged this way until it was determined that the waste was radioactive. The county's decision was appealed by 30 individual appeals:

Council of Canadians: “We are alarmed that Colchester County is aware that naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and the four chemicals in the BTEX group (Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl-Benzene and Xylene) are present in the fracking wastewater and still approves AIS’ plan.”

Ecology Action Centre: “AIS has given assurances to council of extensive testing of all hydraulic fracturing fluids before the company accepts them for treatment...But the evidence indicates that there was little or no testing of fluids that AIS brought from New Brunswick. Results of testing performed on the fluids in the Triangle Petroleum Kennetcook waste ponds have been secured and made publicly available through Freedom of Information. These analyses were made available to AIS, but are only for a very limited number of chemical compounds. AIS also received from Triangle the manifests for all the chemical compounds used in the hydraulic fracturing- but the amounts used are not given, and cannot be calculated.”

Public hearings were held May 6 and 7, 2013. Statements were given by the company, the Director of Public Works, Nova Scotia Department of Environment, and 15 appellants and intervenors, and presentations were given by 17 members of the public who had not filed a formal appeal. The Sewer Use Appeals Committee on behalf of Colchester County unanimously decided to overturn the decision and will not allow the discharge of the frac waste into the sewer systems. The provincial government had given partial approval and the company argued the water will meet federal guidelines. The Committee members decided there are too many unknowns with “no independent verification of which chemicals are going down the drain” and that the “river and the Bay of Fundy are too important to permit such discharge on an experimental basis.”

“In the end the Committee feels it is not the role of the Municipality to allow the Bay of Fundy to be a petri dish for fracking wastewater. Rather, it is the Municipality’s role to ensure the environment is protected now and in the future, and in that role, it must exercise caution to act only when the information is complete.” |Read more|