Jane Hammond
More than 100 people attended public meetings in Moora and Dandaragan on April 22 to hear the first-hand account of US rancher John Fenton’s life in a fracked gasfield.
Mr Fenton told the meetings how his hair and eyebrows had fallen out after exposure to air pollutants from a blowout on one of the gas wells on his Wyoming farm.
He said his life had been turned upside down by the fracking industry that had put 24 wells on his small ranch. The nearest well was less than 100 metres from his back door and the family lived with constant truck movements, venting gas wells and water that was so polluted it could no longer be used for drinking or cooking.
With gas leases now covering a large swath of the Mid West and plans to conduct seismic testing for gas in the Kolburn bore field, Moora’s only drinking water supply, Mr Fenton said landholders and residents needed to be aware of what life could become if the fracking industry gained a foothold in the region.
Mr Fenton’s Mid West speaking engagements were part of national tour organized by Lock the Gate.
He spoke to an informal gathering at the Dandaragan Sports Club and a public meeting at the Moora Performing Arts Centre.
Mr Fenton told the crowd in Dandaragan that if he knew what he knew now he would never had let the gas companies anywhere near his property.
“When you take a rural and remote area and you industrialize it for fracking, it impacts on every part of your life,” Mr Fenton said.
He described how his water was so full of flammable gas that to take a shower in his home he had to keep all of the doors and windows open to avoid the house exploding.
Mr Fenton said his wife, in common with many of his neighbours, had lost her sense of taste and smell. Others were suffering from neuropathy and chronic fatigue.
Local famer David Cook spent several hours showing Mr Fenton his organic beef farm in Dandaragan and said he was very concerned at the impact that fracking would have on his business and way of life.
“This area has huge potential to produce food especially from underground water now that the climate is drying,” Mr Cook said.
“To even consider fracking this country is insanity.”
WA coordinator for Lock the Gate Boudicca Cerese said Mr Fenton’s story was a sobering reminder of what we could face in WA if large-scale fracking gasfields are developed in the Mid West. 
