After Fracking?

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Environmental campaigners at Leith Hill.

“Over the last ten years, we at the Leith Hill Action Group have been told by many people in many circumstances that we were just fighting the inevitable. It has been put to me in radio interviews that it was pointless to keep going and that we should just let Europa get on with it. We have faced attitudes from public officials that we were just delaying the unavoidable. However, today’s announcement shows the value of continuing the fight.”  —  Leith Hill Action Group

In September 2018 local residents and environmental campaigners celebrated the end Europa Oil and Gas’s drilling plans at Leith Hill. The site was described as an “irreplaceable ecological habitat” in the Surrey Hills, home to endangered species and ancient sunken lanes. Europa’s plans raised concerns about ecological and health threats associated with oil drilling. After a decade of occupations and organising by a wide variety of groups and communities the UK government opted not to permit Europa to continue.

The campaign to protect Leith Hill from oil drilling has been written up as a case study on how “protest and public pressure works” by former Green MEP Keith Taylor who argues that “lessons learned from the battle for Leith Hill need to be shared far and wide”. Just over a year later in November 2019, the UK government established a moratorium on fracking.

But despite these gains, local communities and environmental activists in the Surrey Hills face a different and emerging set of challenges — including new prospecting sites, loopholes on environmentally damaging extraction techniques and tensions between fossil fuel industry activity and global carbon emission reduction targets.

Following is an interview with Sarah Finch at Frack Free Surrey who tells us more about their activities and plans, as well as what Mole Valley residents can do to help.

What is the history of the Frack Free Surrey group? How did it get started?

Frack Free Surrey is not an organisation but a loose network of campaigning groups, including those in and around Brockham and Leith Hill. In 2011 some Surrey residents, who had seen the film Gasland about fracking in the US, became concerned about plans for unconventional oil and gas drilling in Surrey. We set up a website frackfreesurrey.com and held public meetings around East Surrey. Some of us had been active in other campaigns or groups before, particularly Greenpeace, the Green Party, and campaigns against airport expansion. Some were residents living near the proposed drill sites who were motivated first by concern for their local community or property but became involved in wider campaigning on the issue.

How did were concerns about oil drilling first raised? How did you discover these plans? What can residents do to monitor this?

Local residents had been fighting the plans drill for oil at Leith Hill since 2008. See here for a brief history. The next site to come to our attention was Horse Hill, near Charlwood, when a company applied for planning permission to drill an exploratory oil well in 2011. This was passed in 2012. Residents can find out about plans to drill in their area by looking out for planning applications submitted to Surrey County Council, and also by following groups like Frack Free Surrey and the Weald Action Group.

What motivates your group to fight fracking? What aspects of fracking should those who live in Mole Valley be concerned about?

Fracking as officially defined is not in the cards for Mole Valley at present. The geology in this part of Surrey means that companies can use a method called ‘acidisation’ so oil and gas can flow. Acidisation involves injecting solutions of acids and other chemicals into the well and often into the surrounding rock, to clean the well and/or create passageways called ‘wormholes’.

Under altered legal UK definitions, acidisation will not count legally as fracking. It’s ‘fracking’ only if you use a lot more water. Yet each well could be acidised multiple times, using much higher concentrations of chemicals than fracking. Acidisation is poorly regulated, and the effects may be cumulative. Impacts could include groundwater pollution and earthquakes.

Many of us are motivated by climate change and the need to transition rapidly away from fossil fuels. The world’s leading climate scientists warn of catastrophic climate events if global temperatures increase more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. 84% of all known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground to keep within this 1.5° limit. To prevent disaster, please say no to all oil and gas exploration. We need to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

'Risks of fracking and other well stimulation treatments' from conservacy.org.

Who are your other collaborators and supporters? Are there others that you’d like to see supporting your work?

Frack Free Surrey is a loose network of groups opposing oil and gas drilling across Surrey. We include local residents and environmental campaigners. Friends of the Earth has been very supportive, and we’ve worked with other groups on particular issues, such as CPRE Surrey and Extinction Rebellion_.

How does Frack Free Surrey relate to movements for environmental protection and environmental justice in Surrey?

Many of us are involved in other groups and campaigns, for example against airport expansion and waste incineration.

What have activities have been undertaken in Mole Valley so far?

We have worked with campaigners opposing the drilling at Brockham and Leith Hill. See, for example, Leith Hill Action Group, A Voice for Leith Hill and Brockham Oil Watch.

People from those campaigns have also supported campaigners elsewhere, most recently at Horse Hill and Dunsfold.

What is the status of the Leith Hill site? Is the site safe now?

Leith Hill is not entirely safe. Although drilling cannot now take place on the Coldharbour Lane site which Europa Oil and Gas was seeking to use, UK Oil & Gas now has the licence for that area and has said it will seek to find an alternative site to drill from to access the oil under Leith Hill. The future of both the Brockham and Leith Hill areas remains uncertain.

What do you make of the recent fracking moratorium? What does it include and exclude? Are there significant loopholes that we should be worried about? What can be done to ensure that it is strengthened, broadened and enforced?

As mentioned above, acidising is a major omission from the recent moratorium. You can read more about this in this post from the Weald Action Group, in this open letter and report from Brockham Oil Watch and in this briefing from Friends of the Earth.

“The Weald Action Group is one of those voices calling for the moratorium to be extended to other forms of oil and gas extraction, which aren’t defined as fracking, but which carry many of the same risks, including earthquake risk.” — Weald Action Group

“Acid stimulation, which has been described as a fracking-like method and a sister technology to hydraulic fracturing, involves similar risks to those posed by hydraulic fracturing, namely induced seismicity, air and noise pollution, groundwater contamination and industrialisation of the countryside.” — Brockham Oil Watch and Harrison Grant Solicitors

What is your longer term mission around oil drilling? Do you think every site will have to be challenged on a case by case basis, or could there be policy or legal changes that could offer broader protections against unconventional extraction?

We hope that national climate policy will mean that no new fossil fuel projects will be allowed. I personally am pursuing a legal case against Surrey County Council arguing that it was unlawful to allow 20 years of oil production at Horse Hill because it conflicts with national climate objectives. For example, the UK now has a legally binding target to reduce GHG emissions to net zero by 2050. And in May last year, the UK’s independent advisor to the Government on climate change, the Climate Change Committee published two reports setting out how we can reach this goal. Their recommendations include ending the use of oil in transport by 2035. So far I have not been granted permission for a Judicial Review but I am taking it to the Court of Appeal.

We also want the stricter regulations (and moratorium) for fracking extended to cover other unconventional forms of oil and gas extraction.

What can people do to get involved/support your work?

Keep an eye out for planning applications for oil and gas drilling, and object to them. Sign up for emails on our website http://frackfreesurrey.com/ for occasional email updates and invitations to get involved. These cover all of Surrey, not just Mole Valley. You can visit one of the regular events at Horse Hill, or visit the camp to show your support. See facebook.com/HorseHillPG

Find out more

Following are some more links, resources and communities where you can find out more about fracking, drilling and environmental activism in Surrey and beyond.

Do you have a story to tell about a social or environmental issue in Mole Valley? Get in touch at hellomole@protonmail.com.