Cuadrilla’s incredible vanishing act

Most of us are by now aware that there were two significant earth tremors in the Fylde in early 2011, which coincided with Cuadrilla’s fracking at Preese Hall. It seemed for a while that as reported by the Daily telegraph in 2011 that “Cuadrilla admits drilling caused Blackpool earthquakes” and by the Blackpool Gazette that “Drilling did cause ‘earthquake’”

Cuadrilla’s own Senior Geoscientist, Huw Clarke, appeared to admit as much in a co-authored research letter which concluded that;

“The fault was reactivated by the hydraulic fracturing in a strike-slip mode because of its steep dip and optimal orientation relative to the current stress field, elevated pore pressure, high-stress anisotropy, all of which resulted in a high slip tendency.” (Our emphasis)

How strange then that when the Daily Telegraph posted an article on Cuadrilla’s mounting financial losses (Cuadrilla cuts costs to stem losses as shale project faces further opposition) they should have to edit it to remove a reference to Cuadrilla having caused the earth quake.

What was even stranger though was the fact that a factual and polite comment pointing to Mr Clarke’s research letter was deleted.

After 3 deletions I got a little more pointed

This of course got deleted too.

So why, we have to ask ourselves are Cuadrilla so keen on removing all reference to these tremors from public discourse? After all they previously seem to have been prepared to admit that they were their responsibility?

And why is a supposedly reputable paper like the Daily Telegraph apparently prepared to both kowtow to Cuadrilla’s demands in this way and also to remove any references to evidence that questions their position?

Could it be that as they approach the point where they hope to start fracking that Cuadrilla are so worried about the prospect of causing a further quake, which would surely result in a ban for their industry even from this supine government, that they are attempting a sort of Stalinist revision of history?

To be honest I find both their and the Telegraph’s actions quite incomprehensible here.