Go Green Radio

Andrew Nikiforuk’s new book, Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider’s Stand Against the World’s Most Powerful Industry, is the shocking story of an oil and gas industry insider’s determined stand to hold government and industry legally accountable for the tremendous damage caused by fracking. When Jessica Ernst’s well water turned into a flammable broth that even her dogs refused to drink, the biologist and long-time oil patch consultant discovered that energy giant Encana had secretly fracked hundreds of gas wells around her home, piercing her community’s drinking water aquifer. Since then, her ongoing lawsuit against Encana, Alberta Environment, and the Energy Resources Conservation Board has made her a folk hero in many places worldwide where fracking is underway or is being contemplated. Slick Water raises dramatic questions about the role of Big Oil in government, society’s obsession with rapidly depleting supplies of unconventional oil and gas, and the future of civil society.