Evaluation of UK Legislation and Policy on Fracking

Evaluation of UK Legislation and Policy on FrackingAN EVALUATION OF CURRENT UK defecateulation LEGISLATION AND POLICY MEASURES TO CONTROL THE POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF FRACKING ON WILDLIFE CONSERVATIONChapter 1 IntroductionIntroductionThe pace of the knowledge of Britains Shale- hired gun industry is accelerating receivable to the accredited administrations policy to progress the fireion of shale- swash, or fracking as viridityly cognize, to try expertness bail, growth and jobs (DBEI. 2017). Commercial extraction of shale- mishandle is non yet in production, but exploration of the rec everyplaceable amount open is occurring. Shale-gas could electric potentially be a resource that transforms the UK energy market and contribute to the national security of supply. However, whilst the economic potential is appargonnt, the environmental and social implications argon unknown. There stick been reports of earthquakes (in Lancashire) (DECC 2013), leakage of fracking chemicals and gas (methane) into the water table, where fracking has occurred, nigh typically in the joined States of America (Finkel and Hays 2016). There has in like manner been campaigning by familiarity groups opposed to fracking because of the environmental concerns. Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting a viscous fracturing fluid carrying a proppant, usually select sand, which is left in fractures to hold them open and levy substance migration to considerablybores but advances in guiding boring with a great horizontal reach way that multiple well quite a little be drilled from a single pad. (Zillman et al. 2015). However, this could involve horizontal drilling downstairs Nature Reserves, Country Parks, Sites of Special scientific bear on (SSSI) etc. roughly of the concerns by these new technologies atomic number 18(a) Air emissions.(b) Water quality and quantity (aquifer and approach water contamination by fracturing fluid chemicals).(c) Potential seismal activity, partic ularly in major fault areas.(d) frequent participation in regulatory decisions concerning fracturing activities.(e) Transparency, including open disclosure of chemicals and toxicity teaching.(f) Disturbance creating dust, noise, and congestion in communities that host fracturingoperations. (Zillman et al. 2014.)All of which convey potential to impact upon humans and wildlife preservation.Consequently, the honor and Policy surrounding fracking and the environment to conserve wildlife get out be gauged.Aims and ObjectivesThis take hold of aims to adjudicate current UK mean legislation and policy with assure to the potential impacts of fracking on wildlife conservation. An analysis of the controls available for the protection of wildlife and the compensation operations that are soon in transport pass on be discussed within this report. The conk outs of concerns and opinions of the businesses involved, giving medication policy, wildlife constitutions, public and media opinions which may have an impact on future proviso policies and procedures, habitat degradation, human health, and wildlife conservation leave alone be to a lower placetaken. reason studies, government articles, fracking fellowship media tale and media reports utilise to illustrate current approach. An analysis and evaluation coincidence of cardinal shale gas companies within the dickens counties of nontinghamshire and Lancashire, both of which have had planning permission granted for fracking exploration sites. In the county of Lancashire, planning permission was refused not besides for an exploration site but for extraction of shales gas. The fellowship off-key to the government to appeal this decision which was overturned. Preston New Road executionion convocation (a group of local residents) has subsequently appealed and the hearing is set for 15 abut 2017. Therefore, are the strategies that are currently in attribute sufficient to gibe all needs from both c ompanies, the conservationists, the public and the government? To investigate and evaluate the policies and procedures ask by the Shale gas companies to obtain planning permission to intromit environmental Impact estimates, are these effective, detailed sufficiently and acceptable? What are the procedures post damage or accident? Is this acceptable? Critical analyse of each perspective.Methods MaterialsThis evaluation analysis is a desktop review and lead therefore not require the participation of human, animal, and environmental subjects. Information pull up stakes be sourced from scientific and constabulary books, scientific journals, media reports and websites (such as governmental, lawful and the phoners websites). European Law leave alone not be taken into consideration due to the imminent exit from the European Union. Therefore, only the Laws and policies currently in place for Eng knock down and Wales are to be included. Some of the topics covered in this line of b usiness go forth be Environmental Law Law Commission Report 2012 bailiwick proviso Policy Frame run away Environmental Impact Assessments of the sites in the two Counties Comp all information of the two companies involved Caudrilla Resources and I triggerman plc. The criteria used when searching for information was based upon Environmental Law Fracking in the UK Legislation and policy with regard to planning in the UK Fracking in Lancashire Fracking in Nottinghamshire Hydraulic Fracturing Shale Gas UK Shale Gas Fracking House of Commons 2017 .. to be completed. Not quite sure how to run through with(predicate) this offChapter 2 Shale-gas Fracking2.1 Overview of fracking.Extraction of a natural gas known as shale gas is found in shale rock formations that can be extracted by Hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The gas is mined by drilling a well down vertically until it hits the shale, then horizontally. This involves inserting high volumes of water composite with chemicals int o the rock to cause it to fracture and release the gas. See Figure 1. in the lead dour the UK government supports fracking although concerns remain about the adequacy of current UK regulation of groundwater and surface water contamination and the assessment of the environmental impact.Figure 1. Hydraulic Fracturing and environmental concerns ( carbon copy Brief 2013).2.2 Legislation and policy relevant to fracking, and wildlife conservation.Environmental regulation is mean to protect the environment. The impact and effectiveness of the legislation can be considered from whatever(prenominal) perspectives which seem to be fragmented and haphazard at best. Some of the law statutes for environmental protection include great Air characterization 1956Clean Neighbourhood and Environmental Act 2005Control of Pollution Act 1974 as amended in 1989Environment Act 1995Environmental Protection Act 1990Freedom of Information Act 2000Law of Property Act 1925 subject Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949Natural Environment and bucolic Communities Act 2006Nature Conservancy Council Act 1973Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999townspeople Country Planning Act 1990Water Resources Act 1991Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981Case Law will in addition be included where relevant.The principles under common law governing property rights to the subsurface and to minerals are necessary to escort the law governing activities using geological developments. The general rule (with some exceptions) is that the rights deriving from the possession or proprietorship of an estate in soil extends upwards and downwards. The Latin phrase that expresses this rule is cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum et ad inferos to whom the bemire belongs, to that person it belongs all the way to the sky and the depths (Zillman et al. 2014). Therefore, permission from the land owner must be sort to enable permission for fracking to take place on privately owned land. In the case of Boc ardo v jumper cable cogency UK Onshore Ltd in 2010 the land owner sued the oil company for trespass for leash wells made under its land for directional drilling. In the case Star cleverness Weald Basin Limited (and another) v Bocardo SA (Supreme Court Judgment, 28 July 2010). There is no depth limit later which geological formations are owned by the state and that any infringement of it must have a physical effect on the surface. It could be said therefore that considering the risk of infections associated with fracking and public opinion generally against fracking, land owners would not allow fracking upon their land but government incentives and fracking companies payments to allow access can be a high incentive to land owners. This could influence the conservation of wildlife if directional drilling undermines a special conservation site onside a landowner that has agreed permission.Who owns shale gas? Shale gas counts as vegetable oil within the meaning of the crude A ct 1998 and the rights are vested in Her Majesty. By section 2(1) of that Act. The Crown has the exclusive right of searching for and getting petroleum in its natural condition within Great Britain. The incision of Energy and clime Change (DECC) issues licenses to companies for exploration and for dig. The Oil and Gas role (a subdivision within the government) is responsible for awarding onshore oil and gas licenses, which include exploratory fracking operations. On 17 December 2015, the Oil Gas self-confidence (OGA) announced that licences for a total of 159 blocks were perfunctoryly offered to successful applicants under the fourteenth Onshore Oil and Gas Licensing Round (OGA 2017).Proposals for shale gas exploration or extraction in England Wales are subject to the requirements of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 administered by the Minerals Planning Authority (MPA) for the area in which the development is located. Individual town and city planners face a difficult task, they are required to consider the future economic and social needs of the participation and provide the best possible environment in which to live and work (Evans, Stephenson, and Shaw 2009). Public and conservation charities opinion and opposition to the proximity of the well sites. The legal framework for land use planning and relevant legislation will be discussed individually for Lancashire and Nottinghamshire later.In may 2015, the government issued a statement regarding sustainable development making decisions now to realise our vision of touch economic growth and tackling the deficit, maximising wellbeing and protecting the environment, without affecting the mightiness of future generations to do the same (DEFRA 2015). Each department within the government is responsible for their own policies and activities to create sustainable development with DEFRA overseeing decisions. As you will see from the statement development, economic growth and tackling the deficit, co mes as a precedence before wellbeing and protecting the environment.In June 2012, the government commissioned The majestic Society to compile a Review of Hydraulic Fracturing and their initial findings cogitate The health, safety and environmental risks associated with hydraulic fracturing (often termed fracking) as a means to extract shale gas can be managed effectively in the UK as long as operational best practices are implemented and enforced through regulation (RS and RAE 2012). However, they also made ten recommendations summarised as to detect groundwater contamination, to see well integrity, to mitigate bring forth seismality, to detect potential leakages of gas, water employ and wastewater should be managed in an integrated way, an Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) should be mandatory for all shale gas operations, best practice for risk centering should be implemented. (RS and RAE 2012). These recommendations should be included within the planning and licensing ap plications.On the 6 April 2016, section 50 of the Infrastructure Act 2015 came into effect introducing amendments to the Petroleum Act 1998 regarding when and how consent can be issued for hydraulic fracturing in comparison to the exploration and production of shale gas. The changes to the Infrastructure Act 2015 gives the shale gas companies in England Wales the means to access recently level land at l easternmost three hundred metres resistor for deep geothermal energy, one of which is shale gas. It also imposes a formal consent from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. It also in the contractning stated that there would be a ban on fracking in National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) but SSSIs have been excluded and now allow for resistor fracking.It should be tell that some regulators whom approve licenses for fracking, such as the Environment authorization, view criminal prosecution as a polish resort and prefer to adopt a compliance strategy. The Environment Agency is a government run organisation who work to create better places for people and wildlife, and support sustainable development. (Environment Agency 2017).Environmental permitting regulations coverprotecting water resources, including groundwater (aquifers), assessing and approving the use of chemicals which form part of the hydraulic fracturing fluidappropriate treatment and disposal of mining waste produced during the borehole drilling and hydraulic fracturing processsuitable treatment and management of any naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM)disposal of waste gases through aflare(p)In the planning process the Environment Agency can be a statutory consultee and provides local planning authorities (county or one(a) local authority) with advice on the potential risks to the environment from individual gas exploration and extraction sites (DBEIS 2017).The government publish documentation to convince the public of the stern processes companies have to adhere to before obtaining approval, operators pass rigorous health and safety, environmental and planning permission processes before any shale operation can begin in the UK (DBEIS 2017). See figure 2.Figure 2. Infographic What happens before a company can explore for shale gas? (DBEIS 2017)2.2 Impact on Wildlife Conservation, the concerns and public opinion.The starting signal resource for environmental implication impact to consider is water. The quality, quantity used, handiness of the resource and waste water disposal.Vast quantities of water mixed with proppant and chemical additives, for example gelling and foaming agents, friction reducers, crosslinkers, breakers, pH adjusters, biocides, corrosion inhibitors, scale inhibitors, and surfactants are injected under pressure to release the shale gas and enable the gas to retrogress to the surface. One third of them lack mammalian toxicity data (Stringfellow et al., 2014). The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) 2013, states that it is likely to involve the use of blown-up quantities of clean water, typically 10,000 to 30,000 m3 water per well (10,000 to 30,000 tonnes). The water may be obtained from the local water supply company sources or by abstract entity from surface or groundwater (if permitted by the relevant environment agency under licence).Loss of well integrity has led to contamination of surrounding strata by fracking fluid and/or methane (Jenner and Lamadid, 2013). Most water used is locked away underground and never returned to the natural hydrological cycle. Impacts on water quality have a potential to impact on contamination of groundwater aquifer layers with either the fracking fluid used to dislodge gas, or the methane gas itself (which is of course poisonous). As you will see from the following routine of Great Britain this shows drilling sites and aquafers. See figure 3. Also, to be considered is the potentia l surface discharges of contaminated produced water (water drawn from the formation to bulge out production, which flows to the surface for life of the well) and flowback water (predominantly fracturing fluids, which comes to surface after fracking is completed and before production begins) from shale gas production that could contaminate natural surface waters. Not only is this a risk to public health but also the biodiversity or loss of biodiversity in the relevant environment. A permit, under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2010 (EPR), from the Environment Agency is required where fluids containing pollutants are injected into ground, where they may enter groundwater. To meet there is no evidence that such a contamination has occurred in any site currently in Great Britain, but is it only a matter of time before an accident does occur which will affect the biodiversity of that area.Figure 3.(a) Map of UK display location of onshore wells drilled for exploration or pro duction and productive aquifers. (b) Map of UK showing location of potential shale gas and oil reservoirs and productive aquifers. Aquifer base map reproduced with the permission of the British Geological Survey. NERC. All rights Reserved. (Davies et al. 2014).High pressure snapshot of water into shale formations has been linked to seismic events in Lancashire which will be discussed later.Public participation and consultation has become fundamental for energy regulators due to the eagerness and immediacy of public engagement. The intense media scrutiny and broader public knowledge, as well as increased public organizations (local action groups) and the development of social media have contributed to improved citizen communication and often made local issues national and transnational (Zillman at al. 2015). This has resulted in public demonstrations against fracking in each local fraternity to which fracking licensing have been granted. It would seem that much of public opinion is against fracking.The Infrastructure account (Jan 2015) originally said there would be a ban on fracking in National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest and introduced mandatory Environmental Impact Assessments. But just octonary months later, a major U-turn on this commitment has placed some of the countrys most sensitive and precious wildlife sites at risk by excluding SSSIs from the ban and allowing licences for underground activity in highly protected wildlife sites.2.4 Controls currently in place.In the UK, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) followed the recommendations of the joint report of the lofty Society and Royal Academy of Engineering and developed a choke up neat protocol whereby thresholds for different acceptable levels of seismicity are defined, and if a level is breached during the hydraulic fracturing process the entire operation is to be terminated (DBEIS 2017). This procedure was implemented after seismic activity in Preston in the Lancashire shale gas area. See Figure 4.Figure 4.Infographic Seismic activity traffic light monitoring system (DBEIS 2017)Chapter 3 Comparison of Fracking planning procedures for two Counties3.1 certain fracking in the UK In January 2017, the House of Commons produced a apprize report titled, Shale gas and fracking, which states that there has been recent approval of two planning decisions in Lancashire and North Yorkshire suggesting that commercial fracking is getting closer.3.2 Nottinghamshire County Council Further public consultation is required before Nottinghamshire County Councils Planning and Licensing Committee can consider a planning application for an exploratory shale gas well-site on land off the A634 amidst Barnby tie down and Blyth.Dart Energy is seeking planning permission to pioneer exploratory drilling for shale gas at the site, known as potter Lane. The application is for exploratory drilling, to check the suitabilit y of the rock for shale gas extraction.Nottinghamshire County Councillors will consider the countys second planning application to undertake exploratory drilling for shale gas at the Planning and Licensing Committee meeting on Tuesday 21 demo.The application was submitted by Dart Energy in May last year to drill one exploratory vertical well 3,300 metres deep and three sets of groundwater monitoring boreholes on land off the A634 between Barnby Moor and BlythThe application is not seeking permission to carry out any hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking. The application site, which is currently open invoke land, is around one mile north of Barnby Moor and 1.5 miles south east of Blyth.Permission is sought for a temporary period of up to three years, with the drilling taking place for approximately four months. The County Council has received over 800 representations from the local community and a petition. (NCC)3.3 Lancashire County Council On 1 April and 27 May 2011 two earthqu akes with magnitudes 2.3 and 1.5 were felt in the Blackpool area. These earthquakes were suspected to be linked to hydraulic fracture treatments at the Preese Hall well operated by Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. Thus, operations were suspend at Preese Hall and Cuadrilla Resources Ltd were requested to undertake a full technical study into the relationship between the earthquakes and their operations.Cuadrilla submitted to DECC a synthesis report with a number of technical appendices on 2 November 2011, and published this material on their website. These reports examine seismological and geomechanical aspects of the seismicity in relation to the hydraulic fracture treatments, along with detailed background material on the regional geology and rock physics. They also estimated future seismic hazard and proposed recommendations for future operations to mitigate seismic risk.Further information supplied by Cuadrilla in the course of this assessment is available as Annexes below. The independ ent experts have now made recommendations to DECC for mitigating the risk of induced seismicity resulting from continued hydraulic fracturing at Preese Hall, Lancashire and elsewhere in Great Britain.(OGA 2017)3.4 plaque responses Igas and Caudrilla 3.5 General public and conservationists responses (Wildlife Trust etc.)Chapter 4 Discussion4.1 Comparison of the two counties policies and procedures.4.2 Proposed further exploration sites and possible impacts, compensation etc.Interpretation of the books generally and in relation to the two counties. Analogy with mining and the pass on of the industry in the UK. Political party in government and their views.Limitations of the studyChapter 5 Conclusion and Suggestions for further researchA summary. Critically evaluate the dissertation. Is there enough protection for wildlife conservation? Recommendations for further research.REFERENCESCarbon Brief. 2013. Carbon Briefing what does extracting shale gas mean for the local environment?S cience. for sale at https//www.carbonbrief.org/carbon-briefing-what-does-extracting-shale-gas-mean-for-the-local-environment.Davies, R.J., Almond, S., Ward, R.S., Jackson, R.B., Adams, C., Worrall, F., Herringshaw, L.G., Gluyas, J.G., and Whitehead, M.A. 2014. Oil and gas wells and their integrity Implications for shale and unconventional resource exploitation. ocean and Petroleum Geology. 1-16.Delebarre, J., Ares, E., and Smith, L. 4 January 2017. House of Commons Library Briefing. Number 6073. Shale gas and fracking.Evans, D., Stephenson, M, and Shaw, R. 2009. The present and future use of land below ground. Land uptake Policy 26S. S302-S316.Finkel M.L., and Hays J. 2016. 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Planning, , pp. 32.APPENDIX 1.