* LNG fracking competes for water in northeastern B.C.

[Webpage editor's note: This article is part of a series on water supply and use in British Columbia published in the Vancouver Sun daily. This article addresses the water use and abuse by the natural gas fracking industry in the northeast of the province, incluidng the huge expansion of water abuse if plans by the industry to create liquefied natural gas production (LNG) on coastal BC are successful.]

HUDSON’S HOPE, BC —Two water pipelines, each with the capacity to carry 10 million litres a day, cross ranchers Christoph and Erika Weder’s fields and pastures northwest of town.

That water could have been useful to their operation a year ago during the worst drought northeastern B.C. has experienced in decades, but they couldn’t touch it, because the lines belong to energy companies licensed to use water from the Williston Lake for hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells.

“To me, it’s ironic that we’re expanding water (infrastructure) to extract a non-renewable resource, yet we could use that water to create a renewable resource,” Christoph Weder said.

[See the rest of the Sun's series on water at http://www.vancouversun.com/news/topic.html?t=topic&q=water+series]