West Lake Ainslie residents fear oil exploration

Some people in Cape Breton's Inverness County are gearing up to fight oil and gas exploration in the area by Toronto-based PetroWorth Resources Inc.

The company hopes to drill for oil on land in West Lake Ainslie in November, but some residents fear that could seriously harm the local environment.

"We have concerns about our health.We have concerns about the ecology of the lake.And we're concerned about our drinking water," Anne Levesque, of the Inverness County chapter of the Council of Canadians, said. Her group has been following the exploration plans of Toronto-based PetroWorth Resources, she said, and their main concern is a technique used in shale rock formations.

The technique involves applying water under high pressure to coax gas or oil out of existing fractures in the underground rock.

Levesque said fractionation, or fracking, has contaminated groundwater in other part of North America.

"Cattle have been sick and died from drinking the water. There are increasing concerns with health," she said.

Neal Mednick, president of PetroWorth Resources, said his company doesn't plan to use fractionation or fracking in West Lake Ainslie at this point. But he's not ruling it out in the future; the process has been used elsewhere successfully.

"We fracked three zones in a well just south of Moncton, and it went off perfectly, with absolutely zero impact on the environment or anybody else,"Mednick said.

Levesque said her group will hold a public information session on potential fracking in West Lake Ainslie next week. PetroWorth Resources explores for, develops and produces oil and natural gas in eastern Canada, according to its website.