Go slow on fracking, scientists warn

Canadians face a Pandora’s box of potential environmental and health risks as the oil industry charges forward with hydraulic fracturing techniques that are needed to unlock vast natural gas and oil deposits across the country, says a new report for the federal government.

In a 260-page study to be released Thursday, the expert panel concluded that there simply isn’t enough known about the impacts of hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – to declare it safe, and that key elements of the provinces’ regulatory systems “are not based on strong science and remain untested” while there is virtually no federal regulation.