Cape Times 12 October 2012.
WHEN Soekor drilled for oil in the Karoo in the mid-1960s, they left many deep boreholes behind.
Last week a farmer near Merweville opened one of these old boreholes. Gas flowed out and then water as “salty as the sea”. There was so much gas he struck a match and the water “caught alight”.
University of Free State’s Professor Gerrit van Tonder says this proves what he has been saying all along: that the underground water in parts of the Karoo flows upwards, and if fracking goes ahead, salty underground water, with toxic fracking fluids, methane and other harmful substances released from deep geological formations, will flow upwards to contaminate the fresh underground water nearer the surface. This is the water farmers and Karoo towns rely on for much of their water supply.
“This proves my model. Hyrdaulic fracturing in the Karoo will inevitably result in pollution of groundwater,” Van Tonder said…
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Electricity Governance Initiative - South Africa 