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Campaigners meet MEP at Ardingly Reservoir and call for a ‘Frack Free Zone’ around Balcombe
Anti fracking campaigner at Ardingly Reservoir
CAMPAIGNERS against shale fracturing for oil and gas in the South East lobbied Euro MP Keith Taylor for support at Ardingly Reservoir yesterday.
A group of more than 20 protestors, including one dressed in an anti-contamination suit and breathing mask, met the Green Party MEP at the water source, a few miles from Haywards Heath and Lindfield.
The group repeated their fears of contamination of water supplies by the chemicals used in fracturing, otherwise known as ‘fracking’, if the process was allowed to spread across the UK as it has in the United States.
Ardingly Reservoir is one of the water sources used by South East Water to supply customers in the area. Anti-fracking campaigners fear it, as well as underground water sources and aboveground rivers, could be contaminated if chemicals were to leak from drill sites.
With the South East officially now in a drought situation, fracturing as a method of extracting hydrocarbons is also being condemned because of the quantities of water the proceess uses to fracture the shale rock.
Fracking opponents are supporting an Early Day Motion to parliament calling for a UK moratorium on fracturing until the process has been fully evaluated.
They also want a Frack Free Zone around Balcombe where an exploratory drilling site has already been sanction at Lower Stumble, off the B2036, a mile from the village centre.
Keith Taylor, who has called for more investment in alternative energy sources, held a meeting in Balcombe earlier this year when he first heard the concerns of villagers. He was responding a second time to people’s worries when he agreed to meet them at the reservoir on Tuesday.
For more on this story see this week’s Mid Sussex Times tomorrow (Thursday).
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Weather for Haywards Heath
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 26 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 13 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North west
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