The review panel includes: Graham Gagnon, a professor at Dalhousie University and expert in water management; Maurice Dusseault, a professor in the department of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Waterloo; Wade Locke, a professor of economics at Memorial University; and Kevin Keough, a former head of biochemistry at Memorial University and head of Kevin Keough Consulting; and Ray Gosine, the former dean of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) department of engineering and a former chair of the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Newfoundland and Labrador.Gosine said, “I think academics come to these matters with the understanding we’ll bring to bare on this critical thinking. We’re not coming to this from industry perspective. We’re not coming to it from the other pole, either. We’re coming to it as a collection of people with expertise related to the many dimensions that this opportunity, or challenge — whichever way you want to look at it — brings to bare.”“Our starting point is, if you like, a clean sheet of paper.”
The focus for the review is western Newfoundland, where fracking has been used for oil exploration in the past, although not since 2004. A moratorium on fracking has been in place in Newfoundland and Labrador since November 2013.
Industry has expressed an interest in participating in the review. Shoal Point Energy has a stake in possible shale oil development in Western Newfoundland and is looking to use the review for public education on the process of fracking and best practices.
(Source: The Telegram)
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