James BryceTHE Canadian multinational CNWL OIL is set to begin prospecting for oil and gas off the coast of Nerja and Torrox.
The surveys, which will last for approximately one month, will cover a marine area of 150,000 hectares.
It comes after the controversial project, which has been in the pipeline since 2006, was licensed by the previous government last year in spite of strong opposition from local politicians and environmental groups.
In particular, Torrox mayor Francisco Muñoz, has stressed that tourism and fishing must take precedence over other industries.
“The priority must be to not threaten tourism, which is the main source of income for the Costa del Sol.
“If this action has any negative impact on this sector or on the fishing industry, which in the port of Caleta is one of the most important in Malaga, the government should halt the project.”
Meanwhile Axarquia green party Equo has argued that any drilling could pose a high safety risk to people and marine life in the event of an accident.
“This activity will further impact on a coast already damaged by decades of urban and tourist development and is an obvious risk to a major breeding area for whales in the Mediterranean,” the group added.
Please take note, this is an ecological catastrophe. Unless halted, this signals the end of wildlife, tourism & fishing in the area. The article does not state the technique they are using, although its a pretty certain bet that they would be using hydraulic fracking. This involves fracturing the geology (along a faultline!), and pumping vast quantites of 500 (unlisted) carcinogens into the strata & ultimately the sea & water table. Its not difficult to imagine outcomes, ie earthquakes, toxic seas & a polluted water table, oil spills would be the icing on the cake. I would recommend that anyone should view Josh Fox’s documentary Gas Land before making a decision. “http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking/” – this cannot be allowed to go ahead, please take a stand against it.
Fracking was recently used a bit inland from Blackpool in England. It literally caused a mild earthquake, not something at all common on the Fylde coast. The thought of using this method out at sea is incredible. You said it all Wyn Davies. B.T.W. The local uproar in Blackpool seems to have halted the idiocy, for now, but no doubt they will creep back. Think it was Dylan who said “money doesn’t talk, it swears”.
as long as everybody wants to drive a car and preferably a SUV and as long as Malaga airport keeps expanding to fly ever more millions of tourists in and out and as long as ever bigger Cruise ships will be welcomed it is logical that ever more oil and the corresponding by-product gas will be prospected everywhere. This spiralling cycle has started and will not end until all global reserves have been exhausted. Then we will be able to “enjoy” nuclear energy….who knows there may be nuclear powered cars and planes coming on the market….so it’s all madness and we will have to try to survive it somehow as long as economic growth is considered the only answer.
“The love of money is the root of all evil”
Nothing is safe from the greed and corruption that power brings. Not the beautiful Andalucian Countryside nor now, the Mediterranean Sea.
The people behind this project care not a fig for the fishermen, for the tourist industry, for the health and well being of our sea or for the future generations who will surely wonder how the earth came to be such a desert. Money in their pockets is all they see or care for.
How do we oppose or stop this? After CNWL has completely fracked the med. They will move on. And they will make it necessary for us to do the same. With toxic seas, no fisheries or wildlife, there will be no reason for anyone to come here on holiday, let alone make it possible to live here permanently. Please watch the documentary here, and do whatever you can to prevent this happening: “http://www.solarmovie.eu/movie/playlink/id/585862/”
As long as we need deodorants, catheters, spare limbs,anesthetic, antiseptic, eye glasses,dental adhesive. The list of essential products made from oil is endless. A little realism instead of fanatic hysteria would be refreshing. can’t make all those essential medical things from nuclear power.Its not greed its essential.
I couldn’t agree more with you, oil is a precious & valuable resource & our lives would change unimaginably without it. My point is that 80% of oil is wasted (think of your recycled rubbish being shipped to China for starters). We are avoidably & permanently burning it up for transportation, heating, electricity & short term consumerism. If we were more economical with this very finite resource – we wouldn’t need to to resort to the desperate techniques used in hydraulic fracking to extract the very last drops. If only we could curb our consumption, then we wouldn’t have to sacrifice our health, environment & wildlife permanently to meet this demand. There is far, far too much at stake here to be complacent. If we are prepared to sacrifice marine life (imagine the costas without seafood!) the beaches & environment along with future generation’s health & livelihood to CNWL’s short term greed, then I’m selling up and moving on (& hope they don’t drill there too).
Why would nuclear power be the alternative to oil? Oil is simply plants that were in the ground for millennia. We know how to replicate the process now, leaving out the millennia. We can make all the bits and bobs that Bridget mentioned without raping the planet for the last desperate drops of fossil oil. We have to stop burning the stuff though and find and use other methods of power production. A good start has been made, but more resources need to be poured in to alternatives.It needs efforts equivalent to being on a world war footing, because, make no mistake, that’s how close the world is to apocalypse. There’s nowhere to move to Wyn, as they used to say in Dads Army, “we’re doomed, we’re all doomed”
Stefanjo, you are completely correct on all counts, there is nowhere else to go – I didn’t want to go any further as I thought people were scared enough already…! How do we stop this?
People aren’t scared Wyn, they are either in denial or resigned to the inevitable. “We” are too small and insignificant to sway the selfish,ignorant pigs who don’t give a toss about our children and grandchildren who will inherit the wasteland. The piggies figure they have a big enough cushion to see them to the end of their days and the devil take the hindmost.
I note that nobody has picked up on the fact that CNWL is a Canadian company, and Canada has just become the first country to drop out of the Kyoto protocol. They are the new environmental pariahs.
Sadly, we’re still as dependant as we ever were on a fuel that is destroying the planet. In less than 200 years, we have extracted and burned hydrocarbons that have taken 200 million years to form…. It stands to reason that the environment cannot continue to take this sort of punishment.
I know environmentally active people of 20 years ago, having seen false hope and false promises who are now saying “what’s the point?” The point is very simple… the people alive now must fix this problem, or the planet our descendants inherit could be a very unpleasant place.
Update on fracking in Blackpool. They’re back! It only took three months of quietly lurking in the shadows, before they came up with spurious arguments on the line of “if there are any more earthquakes they’ll only be little ones” As if earthquakes were all that mattered. No mention of groundwater pollution from their chemicals, or low-level radiation being brought to the surface, or hundreds of wells dotted around the countryside, or millions of gallons of potential drinking water being lost in order to force the gas up. Money doesn’t just swear, it blasphemes. Espana, you are next.