Stop oil and gas companies from polluting record-breaking amounts of freshwater in B.C.

The B.C. government has been facilitating an unprecedented giveaway of our most precious resource, freshwater, to oil and gas companies that pollute and permanently remove it from the water cycle.

While the Peace River Region continues to face severe drought conditions, the B.C. government allowed the fracking industry to set a record high for freshwater extraction with a 50% increase over the previous year.

Paying some of the lowest water rates anywhere in Canada – an average of just $2.25 per million litres of water – oil and gas companies in B.C. withdrew enough water for more than 110,000 households last year alone. That’s equivalent to the entire population of Nanaimo.

The sooner we act, the more freshwater we can protect. To address this crisis, the Stand.earth community is calling on the B.C. government to:

Require treatment and reuse of fracking wastewater to reduce freshwater use.
Strengthen disposal well standards, including baseline and ongoing water testing.
End special treatment for oil and gas by centralizing water licensing under the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.
Charge higher, scaled water rates to incentivize conservation and ensure polluting industries pay their fair share.

Send a letter now to call on the B.C. government to take urgent action to reduce the amount of freshwater that fracking companies use by making common-sense changes to the way it regulates the oil and gas industry.

READ OUR LATEST REPORT: Fracking with Freshwater, Stand.earth, Oct 9 2025

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The Honourable

Tamara

Davidson

BC NDP

The Honourable

Adrian

Dix

BC NDP

Minister

Randene

Neill

BC NDP

Dear {contact_data~First Name}{contact_data~lastName},

My name is {user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}, and I’m writing to share my concerns about the increasingly harmful impact that fracking is having on communities and freshwater sources in B.C.

Stand.earth’s new report "Fracking with Freshwater: A record-breaking giveaway of our most precious resource" informed me that oil and gas companies withdrew more than nine billion litres of freshwater from lakes and rivers in B.C. last year; a record-breaking 50% increase over the previous year.

You can read the report at: Stand.earth/FrackingWithFreshwater

I was disturbed to learn that 2024 was the third consecutive year that the oil and gas sector has set a new high for freshwater withdrawals. This water-grab is happening while communities across the Peace River Region face a severe multi-year drought.

Despite record-breaking extraction, B.C. charges oil and gas companies an average of just $2.25 per million litres of water – among the lowest industrial rates in Canada. Unlike other provinces, B.C. charges the same rate to all industrial users regardless of how much water is withdrawn, or whether or not the water is returned to the water cycle. This disproportionately benefits the fracking industry because once finished using the freshwater, it then adds toxic chemicals and injects it into deep disposal wells, never to return to rivers, lakes, or aquifers.

The drought in the Peace River Region, an area home to three of the province's largest hydroelectric dams, has led to BC Hydro having to import electricity. At the same time LNG projects like Cedar and Ksi Lisims LNG add huge new demand for electricity to the grid. This will threaten the province’s ability to generate sufficient hydroelectric power and deliver affordable electricity to customers, even with the new capacity of Site C.

The way your government manages water for the oil and gas sector must be updated to meet the realities of growing fracking and LNG demand. Historically, the oil and gas industry used relatively little water compared to other industrial users. This changed dramatically in 2005 with the introduction of fracking, but laws and regulations have not yet been updated to reflect this new reality. This presents an opportunity for you to intervene and protect communities and precious water sources from irreversible pollution.

To address these and other concerns, I ask that you do everything in your power to:

1. Require the treatment and increased reuse of fracking wastewater to reduce the amount of freshwater used in the process.
    2. Improve standards for disposal wells, and begin baseline and ongoing testing of water systems impacted by the oil and gas sector.
    3. End special treatment for the oil and gas sector by centralizing the power to issue water licenses and permits for the industry to the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.
    4. Charge fracking companies a higher price for water that is significant enough to encourage the conservation of freshwater.

There’s no reason not to act now: each of these recommendations is based on existing technology that has been successfully deployed elsewhere, and regulatory frameworks from other jurisdictions.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent issue. I look forward to hearing more about your stance on fracking and its increasingly harmful impact on communities and freshwater in B.C.

Sincerely,

{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}
{user_data~Zip or Postal Code}

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