Over 51,000 signatures against shale gas extraction in Bulgaria submitted in Parliament

Over 51,000 signatures will be presented today at the National Assembly against the extraction of shale gas in Bulgaria, stated yesterday the “Citizen’s initiative for banning exploration and extraction of shale gas using the method of hydraulic fracturing” by unconventional methods. Today the Chairwoman of Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva will accept their petition. The NGO expects Tsacheva to fulfil her promise and include people from the Citizen’s initiative in expert working groups in order to debate the application of this technology.

According to Mariana Hristova, politicians failed to fulfil most of their promises which they gave after the mass protests of the people against the dangerous technology. The only result is that the Bulgarian legislation has been adjusted in accordance with the European Directive requiring the implementation of environmental assessments even in case of future drilling research. The extraction of shale gas is usually carried out after making drilling horizontal holes at great depths with the aid of explosions, where various chemicals are inserted subsequently. The Citizen’s initiative insisted on announcing the content of these chemicals because some of them are toxic and pollute the earth.

The organisation demanded that the Law on Storage of Carbon Dioxide in the Earth Subsurface be redrafted or rejected. According to Borislav Sandov, this storage is an even more dangerous technology than the production of shale gas. In order to keep carbon dioxide below ground in liquid form, it requires a lot of energy, while, in case of accidents, it can easily percolate and contaminate the area around the drill borehole.

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