Dear Premier McNeil, This past winter I was concerned when Dr. Maurice Dusseault announced his appointment to Dr. Wheeler’s Fracing Review. He made the announcement while attending a public information session on fracing in Newfoundland where Dr Dusseault was quoted as saying ,“There’s many people who are taking the position that fracturing is inherently bad and what I’m saying is that the process of hydraulic fracturing is not much riskier than other industrial processes “ If Dr. Dusseault went on to explain how much riskier, and what those other industrial practices were the media failed to report them . “It is ill understood , and my job as much as I can , is to try to overcome that” and later , referring to fracing in Western Newfoundland “You can’t stop it from happening” I found Dr. Dusseault’s comments reported thewesternstar/News/Local/2014-01-31/article-3597096/Professor%26rsquo%3Bs-position-on-fracking-met-with-criticism/1 very troubling , from a man who was joining an independent review of fracing, as it was clear that he regarded fracing as acceptable , and was taking an advocacy position . I wrote Dr. Wheeler at the time, urging him to not appoint Dr. Dusseault , owing to Dusseault’s obvious prejudices. Dr. Wheeler declined to respond to my email. I have sent you my response to the “discussion paper” Dr. Dusseault authored for the panel, ( June 6, 2014) . The paper contained many unreferenced claims on key issues under consideration . I was then amazed to read a paper Dr. Dusseault published geofirma/Links/Wellbore_Leakage_Study%20compressed.pdf , with other scientists in the literature , which seemed to contradict many of the claims Dr. Dusseault made in his “discussion paper” cbu.ca/sites/cbu.ca/files/docs/hfstudy/Discussion%20Paper%20-%20Energy%20Well%20Integrity.pdf on the same topic. You should also compare Dr. Dusseault’s language in the discussion paper to his patent application as reported in the Tyee thetyee.ca/News/2014/07/17/Fracking-Public-Advisor-Patent/ Yesterday I was shocked to discover that Dr. Dusseault , beyond being an advocate of fracing, has actually created his own fracing process and applied for a patent of his method in 2011 thetyee.ca/News/2014/07/17/Fracking-Public-Advisor-Patent/ . Was Dr. Wheeler aware that Dr. Dusseault has a financial stake in seeing his technology patented and used prior to joining his panel ? Which is worse , to know that Dr. Dusseault has a personal financial stake in shale development, or not knowing of Dr.Dusseault’s conflict of interest ? As you will know from my previous communications, I have been critical of this review since it was first announced by former Premier Dexter , feeling that the reviews already published , by G. David Hughes assets-production-webvanta-com.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws/000000/03/97/original/reports/DBD-report-FINAL.pdf and Deborah Rogers shalebubble.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/SWS-report-FINAL.pdf made it clear that shale gas was not an energy strategy , but an investment banking scam . I have been very critical of the misleading documents published by Dr. Wheeler’s panel members. While the publications are called “ discussion papers” there has been no opportunity to discuss them and Dr. Wheeler has decided to leave the question of whether the papers are modified based on public response entirely at the discretion of the paper’s lead author cbu.ca/sites/cbu.ca/files/docs/hfstudy/HF%20Panel%20Meeting%20Minutes%20June%204th%20-%20Final.pdf , whether the authors is a government employee like Dr. Frank Atherton, a gas industry members like Mr. Ray Ritcey and Dr. Brad Hayes , or an industry patent seeker like Dr. Dusseault . The composition of the panel stretches the concept of “independent review” beyond any reasonable definition . What is it “independent”from ? Independent from the public ? Independent from Responsibility ? Independent from Accountability ? Independent from Ethics ? It is beyond time to shut this farce down, Sincerely Geoffrey May Margaree Harbour Nova Scotia
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 11:51:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015