There is ‘merit’ in carrying out some hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for shale gas in the Karoo, Environmental Affairs Director-General Nosipho Ngcaba said.
‘It does seem there is merit, from our own perspective as a department, on exceptional experimental work that would have to be undertaken under highly-controlled conditions,’ she is quoted as saying in a report on the News24 site. The department had said so in recent written inputs to the inter-departmental task team, set up just over a year ago by Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu to investigate fracking. Ngcaba said these would now have to be considered by Shabangu, and the various options examined before her team finalised a report for Cabinet. She said her department’s inputs had noted, in particular, ‘the avoidance of the contamination of fresh water resources’ in the Karoo region. Further, there should be understanding that carrying out fracking operations ‘would require an enormous amount of water’, and that the Karoo was dry.
Full report on the News24 site
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Article source: http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20120508113212282