My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It would be so much better if we could get the dredging programme sorted out, because it would get rid of the need for massive insurance claims. In my area, if water can reach the pumps, it can be pumped away. Because of the lack of dredging, however, it cannot reach the pumps. It is possible to see the pumps from the flooded areas, but the water cannot reach them and therefore cannot be taken away. Dredging would cure that problem.
My final area of concern is the risk that fracking for shale gas poses to our rivers and groundwater in terms of pollution and water stress. The Bill already amends the 2010 environmental permitting regulations that cover fracking activities, making it an excellent opportunity to address these concerns and strengthen the existing regulatory framework. The House has heard repeatedly that our regulatory regime for fracking is the most stringent in the world, and it is true that, if properly implemented and enforced, the existing regulations could mitigate many of the risks posed by fracking. However, although fracking has been taking place for years, this particular new technology that is planned for the UK brings more serious risks that we cannot properly assess at this early stage. Even the best regulatory regime can only mitigate risk; it cannot eliminate it. That means that a water pollution incident cannot be ruled out. It is therefore of considerable concern that it is not clear who would be liable if something does go wrong. One of the main risks from fracking is pollution of groundwater, which can occur because of faults in production wells. Groundwater clean-up is very costly and can take decades. For example, the contamination of a chalk aquifer near
St Albans in Hertfordshire in 2000 led to an extensive contamination of the public drinking water supply, and the cost of the clean-up, which took a decade, was about £16 million.
Even if liability for pollution can be proven, there remains a risk that fracking companies could go bankrupt, leaving taxpayers or water companies with the costs. That has been a major issue in the case of Scottish Coal, whose liquidators have been given permission to abandon coal mines and polluted land without carrying out restoration or in any way controlling pollution from the sites. Instead of identifying and addressing these risks, it appears that the opposite direction of travel is being taken. Not only is there pressure to simplify and streamline regulation, with the Environment Agency committing to, for example, a dramatic reduction in the time it takes to issue permits to fracking operators, but there is evidence to suggest that existing regulations are not being adequately enforced. For example, at Preese Hall, the Environment Agency did not issue environmental permits for the disposal and management of flow-back waste water; it only discovered after the site had been hydraulically fractured that the flow-back fluid should be classified as radioactive waste.
If experiences in the United States have taught us anything, it would be that we need a strict regulatory regime. We cannot rely on putting our faith in the industry behaving well on a voluntary basis. In a groundbreaking peer-reviewed study of aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shales in Pennsylvania and New York, Osborn et al, 2011, uncovered systematic evidence of methane contamination of drinking water linked to shale gas extraction.
In England, a third of all our domestic water supply comes from groundwater reserves, which are also essential for industry and farming. It is vital that we go as far as possible to mitigate risks in advance and ensure that we make provision to cover the full costs of clean-ups. With that in mind, I ask the Minister to ensure the Bill addresses these issues by implementing a liability guarantee. Such a guarantee would ensure the public purse and the taxpayer are not hit when anything goes wrong.
My next big concern is the amount of water that is required for the production of shale gas. Shale gas exploration and production is a highly water-intensive industry, and the process of fracking requires enormous volumes of water. At Preese Hall up to 8,400 cubic metres—about the equivalent of three and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools—is required per well. The fracking process may have to be repeated several times over the life of the well to keep the gas flowing. With proposals for thousands of sites, each with multiple wells, the potential drain on our already stressed rivers and groundwater could be huge.
I ask the Minister and his Department to consider the Bill as an opportunity to address these concerns by reforming the abstraction regime for taking water from the environment. That should go a long way to ensuring that additional pressure on water resources from fracking does not result in the over-abstraction of water from areas already under water stress. If the Government choose to exploit this new resource, we can make sure that we do so in a way that does not place unacceptable
risks on the environment or on the public purse. Such an approach will also guard against unnecessary resource risks to our communities, our countryside and our businesses.
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