Demonstrators hung a banner off the Westminster Highway overpass over Highway 99 on Monday morning to protest fracking.
Richmond was one of 40 B.C. communities where demonstrators from Frack Free BC, an organization calling for an end to fracking, hung their handmade banners.
Fracking is used in 91 per cent of B.C.’s gas production and is a form of natural gas extraction that requires pumping gallons of pressurized, chemically treated water into shattered rock formations.
The Frack Free BC campaign was launched at Premier David Eby’s cabinet swearing-in ceremony last year.
The organization is calling on Eby to stop issuing new permits for gas wells, to phase out existing production and instead to support transitioning workers and communities to a sustainable economy.
“Pollution from B.C.’s gas industry is poised to explode if the five proposed liquified natural gas (LNG) projects that the province is currently considering on the West Coast are approved, built and supplied with fracked gas,” Frack Free BC said in a media statement.
“This concern was heightened last week when the province approved the controversial Cedar LNG project.”
Fracking and LNG exports are responsible for “19 per cent of the province’s total greenhouse gas emissions,” according to Frack Free BC.
“With B.C. already projected to fall short of its 2030 target (40 per cent decrease from 2007), and communities facing increased health risks from fracking, it is past time for Premier Eby to act.”
