Husky Energy fracking pitch prompts calls for review

A coalition of social justice and environmental organizations is encouraging people to demand an environmental assessment of a new fracking proposal in the Sahtu region of the Northwest Territories.

Husky Energy is applying for permits to drill and frack up to four horizontal wells in the Sahtu by 2018.

Alternatives North, Ecology North and the Council of Canadians are calling on people to write the Sahtu Land and Water Board, urging it to order an environmental assessment.

"The legislation states that public concern is a reason to refer an application to an environmental assessment,” says Christine Wenman of Ecology North. “So the aim here is to demonstrate that public concern."

The deadline for comments on Husky's application is April 28th.

A month ago, a petition was presented to the territorial government calling on it to order environmental assessments for hydraulic fracturing projects.

It was signed by 790 people.

Last year, the first horizontal drilling and fracking project in the north was approved without an environmental assessment.

That decision was influenced in part by a letter-writing campaign by businesses and other organizations in the Sahtu that wanted the project approved as quickly as possible.