My Name Is

Allegany County

Saturday,

November 23, 2013

The Pajama Factory

Williamsport, PA

The Fight for the Karoo 

                                                                       By ANN PINCA

Thousands of miles from the contested drilling rigs of Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale, another shale struggle takes place in South Africa. Since 2011, a fight has been waged by farmers, native Khoi people, and conservationists to keep shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing out of the Karoo, a 150,000 square mile region in the heartland of South Africa. Yet even though it may be far from the forests of Pennsylvania, there is a personal connection between the citizens of the Karoo and the Keystone State.

In July 2011, South African livestock farmers Dougie Stern and Lukie Strydom  visited Lycoming County at the invitation of RDA members after they met at an event in Ithaca, NY.  The Karoo farmers visited drilling operations in eastern Lycoming County as part of a two-week information gathering tour to the northeastern United States.  Accompanying them was South African documentary filmmaker Jolynn Minnaar.

Watch an interview with Jolynn Minnaar - documentary filmmaker; director of "Unearthed", a film about hydraulic fracturing. Says Minnaar, "I went to the United States believing that shale gas really was a panacea for the issues that the world's facing, and I was horribly  disappointed."

Recently, Minnaar and Stern were in the news in South Africa, when they attended a  November 1 meeting hosted by Shell as part of the corporation's intensive outreach campaign to persuade Karoo residents to embrace natural gas exploration and extraction. One of several companies planning to drill in the Karoo, Shell took the lead in attempts to win people over to hydraulic fracturing after discovering surprisingly fierce opposition to the idea.

  

For his tireless efforts and personal sacrifices on behalf of the Karoo, Jonathan Deal was named the 2013 Goldman Environmental Prize recipient. Watch this brief account   of Deal's work in his beloved Karoo.

Despite the odds, Deal

and TKAG were successful in their efforts when the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa's ruling government party, called for a national moratorium in April 2011. However, in September of 2012, the ANC reversed their decision and  

lifted the moratorium, though at the same time it commissioned studies to seriously examine the impacts of hydraulic fracturing. 

Shell continues its efforts to influence the people and government of South Africa, and with familiar terms like game-changer, best practices, environmental responsibility, fair compensation for land, and impacts on just 1% of their allotted area, the fight for the Karoo sounds eerily like it could be in Pennsylvania. Add in the promise of 800,000 jobs, energy security, and a cleaner-burning fuel to power the electricity grid for decades--all delivered by local residents hired by Shell--and the sales pitch similarities are undeniable.

But unlike Pennsylvania, South African residents do not own their mineral rights; ownership of all mineral rights was transferred to the government in 2002. Though, according to Deal, it was not done in anticipation of natural gas exploration, this means that landowners do not have the choice of whether or not to allow drilling on their land, as many Pennsylvanians are able to do. Instead, it is the ANC who will determine if and where drilling will take place, and it is the ANC who will also directly benefit from shale gas production as the owners of the mineral rights. 

Listen to Jonathan Deal's discussion on fossil fuels and climate change at an August 2012 TEDx program in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Says Deal, "Climate change and the fossil fuel industry ... need a determined enemy, and I believe we can be that enemy."

Also, the Karoo is unlike "water-rich" Pennsylvania, with its forested hills and green valleys. Instead, the Karoo, whose name means "Land of the Great Thirst," is a sweeping semi-arid land. Water is the top concern for  

Karoo residents. Shell says that it will bring in water from other sources and will not compete with local communities for fresh water, but farmers in the Karoo worry that the precious water they need for livestock and crops will either disappear or be compromised. Even though it is sparsely populated, the Karoo produces most of South Africa's valuable wool and mohair for export and also provides, fruit, vegetables, meat, olives, wine, and honey to South African cities.  

A video produced by Shell places emphasis on safety practices and shows Shell team member Charmaine Vusani  assuring a Karoo farmer that plans will be in place for any possible accidents. Perhaps the citizens of Karoo would do well to review the records of SWEPI LP, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell operating in Pennsylvania. According to the PA Department of Environmental Protection, SWEPI LP has tallied 215 violations on 77 wells since 2004, not to mention the infamous June 2012 methane geyser in Union Township, Tioga County.  

Asked if Shell's campaign to promote drilling has been successful, Jonathan Deal believes it has only worked "amongst politically connected people and the business men that have been promised incentives."

"Unearthed: The Fracking Facade"   Watch the documentary film. (And see some familiar faces, too!)

 

Deal also attended the November 1 Shell meeting, along with Dougie Stern and Jolynn Minnaar. There, Deal questioned Shell representatives about the accuracy of the promised job numbers, while Minnaar asked about groundwater contamination in the United States. But it was Stern who had the last word.

After pointing out the many "half-truths and lies" spoken by the Shell representatives, Stern called on all the farmers and native Khoi people in attendance to join him in walking out of the meeting. They did.

Learn more: follow Jonathan Deal's blog here