During the past two months Yukoners Concerned About Oil and Gas Exploration and Development have visited four Whitehorse ridings to invite voters to sign a petition opposing Yukon Energy’s liquefied natural gas plant and fracking in Yukon.
To date, we have visited the ridings of Premier Darrell Pasloski and ministers Scott Kent, Currie Dixon and Mike Nixon, collecting nearly 1,500 names, bringing to 4,000 the number of Yukoners who have already signed, making this petition the largest ever undertaken in Yukon. It will be submitted to the Yukon legislature at the start of the fall sitting.
Among the comments we have heard at the door are:
* Our fresh water needs to be protected from pollution.
* Yukon Energy should be looking at renewable energy like wind, solar and bio-mass.
* Industry should pay the full cost of energy and not be subsidized by Yukon ratepayers.
* Yukon does not need another boom-bust activity.
* Who will pay for the infrastructure damage to roads, bridges etc.?
* Fracking will lead to the degradation of our land, water and air and impact our quality of life.
* The location of the LNG plant alongside one of the two exit routes from downtown/Riverdale and adjacent to the existing hydro facility is risky and dangerous.
Although the Yukon Party government has given its approval for the LNG plant, Yukon Energy must still obtain the required building and operating permits before construction can begin.
Stopping this project may be a faint hope, but there is still considerable value in letting the government know that thousands of Yukoners continue to oppose its construction, that Yukoners are concerned because science shows that natural gas, as measured through its life cycle from production to consumption, is much more toxic to the environment than diesel, and that Yukoners care that our LNG would come from fracked sources.
We urge you to sign the petition, to contact your MLA and express your views, to write to the select committee on hydraulic fracturing, and if possible to attend one of the remaining select committee hearings in late August or early September.
Voice your opposition to both the LNG plant and to the oil and gas industry’s plans to frack in Yukon.
Don Roberts and Rick Griffiths
Yukoners Concerned About
Oil and Gas Exploration
and Development