Jane Hutt AM made a brief appearance pledging her unreserved support for the cause. She is the first Labour politician to show any interest in the issue at all, and she clearly heard that there has been a big response to the issue amongst the locals last week. Votes at stake as she seeks re-election! Pretty cynical and none too convincing. Not a word on this issue on her website or Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Re-elect-Jane-Hutt/134296016633180 It is clear that WAG is the body that has to grasp the nettle with this issue, as it is a devolved matter. How she shapes up on this issue after May 5th will be telling.

I shared the platform with Conservative Alun Cairns MP. To be fair, he picked up on the issue relatively early and has demonstrated consistent and seemingly genuine support for the cause. He is not standing for re-election to WAG, to focus on his role as Vale MP. He has to step up to the plate and get this matter a higher profile at a national level. His efforts to date in Westminster appear somewhat timid: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2011-03-31a.50153.h&s=shale+gas+speaker%3A24740#g50153.q0

I talked about the lessons we can learn from what Cuadrilla are up to near Blackpool and went through the full range of threats and implications. Alun Cairns and I then shared responses to questioning from the audience. We actually complemented each other surprisingly well. He acknowledged my greater technical understanding, whereas he clearly has a better appreciation of parliamentary/WAG procedures. We were pretty much united in our general thrusts.

Next up?
1. PUBLIC MEETING – Including representatives of proposers Coastal Oil & Gas Ltd, from Bridgend.

We should all be backing their campaign as they are the most successful anti-fracking campaign group in the UK and have even drawn support from Canada.

I hope this group will expand its remit to become not just the ValeSaysNo campaign, but WalesSaysNo, or even UKsaysNo.

This is echoed here too:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/columnists/2011/04/02/welsh-communities-must-stand-united-against-the-practice-of-fracking-91466-28443866/

Andy

The 22 written submissions to the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s Shale Gas enquiry can be found here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmenergy/writev/shale/shale.pdf
The motivations and bias are fairly obvious in most submissions, but the overwhelming body of evidence supports everything I have had to… Say on the issue and vindicates the ValeSaysNo campaign.

http://www.assemblywales.org/gethome/e-petitions/epetition-list-of-signatories.htm?pet_id=578

Sponsored by Friends of the Earth Cymru.

The rallying call has come from Cardiff. If anyone can help at all it will be much appreciated.

Personally, weekends are difficult, but I will hoppefully get there over the last, bank holiday weekend.

Perhaps we can get a team together for that weekend. We can discuss it and finalise it at the meeting on 21st April.

Andy.

From: Yvan Maurel
Date: 30/03/2011 11:32:11
Subject: Assembly elections – Help elect the first Green AM

Dear Green Party member,
After the historic election of Caroline Lucas as first ever Green MP in Brighton, the Welsh Assembly is the last level of government in the UK without an elected Green.
We can make history again here in Wales as we are very close to getting the first Green Assembly Member elected in South Wales Central – Cardiff area. We are therefore appealing to you to join us and help on the campaign in Cardiff, specifically on any of the following dates for leafletting door-to-door and/or canvassing:
Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd April

Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th April
Saturday 30th April, Sunday 1st and Monday 2nd May

We generally do 3 sessions over a weekend: Saturday at 10am and 1.30pm, and Sunday 12 or 12.30pm. Social drinks and/or meal is part of it, let’s enjoy it! We will be out every weekend til 5th May and also some evenings during the week. Please consider coming up to do a session or two, we can also put you up in Cardiff, just get in touch, thank you.

BE PART OF IT – MAKE HISTORY IN WALES

Yvan Maurel, Wales Green Party
02920 310 306 / 07583 665 447
vivarf@hotmail.com

This is an interesting development. From the data published I cannot see them being able to establish a direct cause and effect in terms of the fracking causing the quake, but this certainly heightens concerns over the security of the environment into which they are pumping these frack fluids, and having the epicentre so close is certainly not good news for the integrity of the concrete lined borehole.

Similar sizes earthquakes, and bigger, are much more common in South Wales than most of us realise, as these articles reveal.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/06/06/earthquake-hits-port-talbit-91466-23805180/ TheBritish Geological Survey later confirmed there had been an earthquake with a magnitude of three with an epicentre just over six miles north east of Port Talbot. A spokeswoman for South Wales Police said: We had three reports yesterday evening. Members of the public from the Wild Mill and Sarn area of Bridgend reported feeling a tremor.

The epicentre six miles north of Port Talbot could put this very close to a test borehole site.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/09/21/wales-due-for-strong-shock-says-earthquake-expert-91466-27307376/

Dr Roger Musson, an expert from the British Geological Survey, revealed an earthquake measuring in the region of five on the Richter scale could strike and cause significant damage to towns and cities. His warning comes after Cardigan Bay suffered a 1.7 magnitude quake and Abergavenny, Aberdare and Bangor all witnessed slight tremors of 1.6, 1.3 and 1.1 magnitudes respectively since August 22 [2010]. He said: On average Wales gets a magnitude three earthquake every three years and normally a magnitude four every 30 years. But [Wales] is also a bit unusual in some respects as it tends to get a four to five magnitude more frequently than one would expect.”

Aberdare and Abergavenny are within the potential fracking target areas.

http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/hazard/Hazard_UK.htm In South Wales, on the other hand, although a line of epicentres of significant events can be traced from Pembroke (an earthquake in 1892) to Newport (active in 1974), only the Swansea area shows consistent recurrence, with significant earthquakes occurring in 1727, 1775, 1832, 1868 and 1906. (Given this periodicity it may be that a further earthquake in this area is due in the near future.) The Hereford-Shropshire area has also produced large earthquakes in 1863, 1896, 1926 and 1990, but none of these share a common epicentre.

Test drilling is proposed near Swansea.

Thanks to John Llewellyn Perkins, from thevalesaysno.com for sharing this.

Today we had Catrin O’Neill from the http://thevalesaysno.com/ campaign being interviewed at length on Radio Cardiff at lunchtime.
She was fantastic (bar a couple of minor factual inaccuracies) and cannot failed to have stirred up the listeners interest in the issue.

We have also got an excellent front page piece, followed up on page 3, of the GEM.

I will not be submitting any further call in requests for test drilling applications, for the time being at least. I will try again on Phase Two – exploratory wells – which will probably involve trial fracking ahead of Phase Three – full scale production.

Full text of letter received from WAG is below:

Dear Mr Chyba

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACT 1990 – SECTION 77
CALL IN REQUEST
APPLICATION FOR PLANNING PERMISSION TO DRILL AND TEST THE INSITU
LOWER LIMESTONE SHALE AND ASSOCIATED STRATA
LAND AT UNIT 1, LLANDOW INDUSTRIAL ESTATE, COBRIDGE
APPLICATION NO. 2011100115/FUL

I refer to your earlier correspondence asking the Welsh Ministers to call in the planning
Application referred to in the title to this letter.

I have considered the issues associated with the application in the light of the Welsh
Assembly Government’s policy on call-in (detailed in Planning Policy Wales) and have
Concluded that they are not of more than local importance. 1 have informed the Vale of
Glamorgan Council that I do not consider that the application should be called in for
Determination by the Welsh Ministers. It is now for the Council to determine the application.

In reaching my decision 1 did not consider the planning merits of the proposed development
And my decision not to call in the application should not in any way be taken as a reflection
On the planning merits of the proposal. There are, however, two points I would like to make.

The first is that the decision not to call in this application is not, nor should it be construed
As, an indication of the view of the Welsh Ministers on the merits of this application or any
Future application for development associated with the extraction of shale gas. It is simply
An indication that the Welsh Ministers saw no reason to take the responsibility for the

Determination of this application out of the hands of the local planning authority.

The second is that should the applicants decide at a later stage that they wish to extract
Shale gas then they would have to submit not only a further, separate, application to the
Local planning authority for planning permission but also obtain any necessary licences or
Consents that may be required from other bodies eg Environment Agency Wales, Health
And Safety Executive.

Yours sincerely

S M JONES

Deputy Head,
Decisions Branch
Planning Division

Signed under authority of the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing,
One of the Welsh Ministers

Part 1 – http://medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=608:noble-war-in-libya-part-1&catid=24:alerts-2011&Itemid=68
Part 2 – http://medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=1&Itemid=8

This in depth analysis of the intervention in Libya is spot on.
It also underlines the way our dependence on fossil fuels distorts our morality (something in common with the closer-to=home fracking issue).

Here is a small extract to whet your appetite:

The claim of noble intent is challenged by Western indifference to mass killing in Yemen and Bahrain using Western weapons. Cockburn writes in the Independent:

The worst verifiable atrocity in the Arab world in the past week was not in Libya but in Yemen, where pro-government gunmen machine-gunned an unarmed demonstration last Friday, killing 52 people.

Asked whether the United States still supported Yemens dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, or if it was time for him to go, US defence secretary Robert Gates said:

I don’t think it’s my place to talk about internal affairs in Yemen.

Saleh is an ally of the US against al-Qaeda, Eugene Robinson observes in the Washington Post, and therefore, is a useful tyrant. He gets nudges, not bombs.

He better remain so, as look what happened to Saddam Hussein when he stopped being a useful tyrant to West.