A message to 'fracking' company

Editorial Department • Published 15 Sep 2011 09:30 Comments 1 Comment

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A public letter to Mr Richard Moorman, CEO of Tamboran Resources, the company intent on hydraulically fracturing or "Fracking" much of the Lough Allen basin for the fossil fuel "shale gas". Fracking is a highly controversial method of gas extraction which has received bad press wherever it has taken place the world over.

Dear Mr Moorman, - I attended the "community information meeting" held by your company at the Westville Hotel, Enniskillen on the evening of Tuesday September 6. Many questions were asked, most of them fielded by yourself. You are obviously well trained in customer relations as you come across as a charming man even when subjected to great pressure.

Many of your answers however did not seem to me to make much sense. One attendee had analysed your financial claims and came up with a result, using your own figures, which would imply that if Tamboran invested their money in a local building society, the interest gained would be more than the profit you claim you could make for shale gas extraction over the entire 50 year project life!

You claim no toxic chemicals will be used in your entire process and yet no one else in the entire world has managed to Frack profitably without a cocktail of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals including yourselves. Your words are strong but your evidence is weak.

Many of the questions asked of you were of a technical nature however the question I asked you was not and you did not answer it satisfactorily. You side tracked by talking about your shareholding in the company which does not answer the question and before I could re ask it the chairman of the meeting forcefully moved on to another questioner.

I would therefore like to take this opportunity to re ask my question in this public forum and request that you reply to the same.

I want to ask, rhetorically, where will you be in 10 years time, you might still be working for Tamboran, more likely you will be working for another company - probably still in the same field, or you may be retired on the proceeds of the sale of Tamboran which is set to float on the stock market in 2012. However in 10 years time if the promises you have made to us prove to be less than truthful then every man, woman and child in Fermanagh and the other surrounding counties in the Lough Allen basin will be paying the price by the potential loss of everything they own. Slashed land price, inability to farm their polluted land, unable to live off their land. So it seems to me perfectly fair and reasonable that I should ask you to put yourself in the same situation.

I therefore hereby request that you put up as surety your entire personal family wealth to be forfeited in the event that any or all of your promises to us prove to depart from your stated public position. You should have no difficulty with agreeing to this if everything you have told us is true. There cannot be major chemical leaks or contamination of water supplies, as has happened in other parts of the world, if there are no chemicals involved, no large areas can be killed off if all the salt extracted from the wells is disposed of properly.

This surety would be enshrined in a steel lined, triple engineered concrete reinforced contract with extra bullet proofing for good measure and it would mean that wherever you are in the world at any time during the duration of the 50 year contract you or you descendants would be pursued and stripped of all your/their assets. Please note that this is no more than you are asking of us.

Additionally Tamboran would be required to deposit 10 Million Euros into a Trust fund set up solely to cover our legal costs in pursuing you. It could not be used for any other purpose. If after 50 years we have not had recourse to use the fund then it would be returned complete with full interest to Tamboran, or its subsidiaries or to a charity of their choosing. Tamboran should have no difficulty agreeing with this as the return on that investment would be greater than the return on the same amount of money invested in Fracking The Lough Allen basin.

Finally since tens of thousands of people in the Lough Allen Basin will have their livelihoods gambled with it is only fair that the surety conditions applying to you should be extended to include all the other directors of Tamboran as well.

I await your answer with eager anticipation.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Ireson

A concerned member of the community.

This letter appeared in Impartial Reporter 15 Sep 11

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meglin
2 posts
Oct 18, 10:31
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bravo, what a fantastic response to a vile, lying man.

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