From theGuardian.com

New Brunswick fracking protests are the frontline of a democratic fight

Posted by Martin Lukacs - October 21, 2013

Images of burning cars and narratives about Canadian natives breaking the law obscure the real story about the Mi'kmaq people's opposition to shale gas exploration

A girl plays the drums as she sings a traditional First Nations song during an anti shale gas demonstration in Montreal in support of the Mikmaq people of Elsipogtog First Nations in New Brunswick. Photograph: Oscar Aguirre/Demotix/Corbis

The image of burning police cars played endlessly on the evening news. Television and talk radio blared out reports of "clashes" between police and indigenous protestors. Last Thursday in New Brunswick near the Elsipogtog First Nation, we were told the government had enforced an injunction against a blockade of a US shale gas company. There was nothing about the roots of a conflict years in the making. An appeal to the stereotype of indigenous violence was enough: once again, the natives were breaking the law; the police had to be sent in. Catching the headlines, Canadian could shake their heads and turn away their gaze.

But smoke and flames from police cars can only hide the truth for so long. The exact chronology is not yet settled, but this much is clear: on Thursday morning someone in government sanctioned the Canadian police to invade a peaceful protest site like an army. In a dawn raid, snipers crawled through the forest, putting children and elders in their cross-hairs. Police carried assault rifles and snarling dogs, and sprayed tear gas and shot rubber-type bullets. The result was predictable: shocked and enraged people, a day ending in chaos.

There is only one reason the police were unleashed. Not because of the New Brunswick Premier's claims about the dangers of an "armed encampment"; protestors had been unswervingly non-violent for months. Ever since 2010, when New Brunswick handed out 1.4 million hectares of land - one-seventh of the province - to shale gas exploration, opposition had been mounting. Petitions, town hall meetings, marches on legislature had slowly transformed to civil disobedience, and in October, to the blockade of equipment that Texan SNW Resources was using for seismic testing. The company was losing $60,000 daily, and the non-violent defiance had put a wrinkle in the Premier's plans for a resource boom. The blockade had to go.

The pundits howl or hand-wring about destroyed police cars, but say nothing about the destruction wrought by fracking. Short for "hydraulic fracturing," fracking pumps a toxic cocktail of chemicals, sand and water into deeply drilled wells. It shatters the bedrock to free shale gas. The chemicals - many of which are kept secret by industry - are linked to cancer and other illnesses. The process contaminates ground water and even causes earthquakes. And it doesn't just do violence to the earth: it releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes massively to climate change. Such concerns have spurred citizen movements to win moratoriums in Quebec, New York and France.

But Premier David Alward, hell-bent on opening up the province to shale gas, has spurned consultation with First Nations and the rest of the population. His latest step is demonization. "Clearly, there are those who do not have the same values we share as New Brunswickers," he cynically announced on Friday. But the opposition to the Premier's shale gas agenda is not just a supposedly isolated Indigenous community: it is two of every three people in Atlantic Canada. Little wonder he has repeatedly rejected a referendum on shale gas. It turns out the residents of Elsipogtog aren't criminal deviants. They are the frontline of a fight for the democratic and environmental will of New Brunswick.

"It is our responsibility to protect Mother Earth, to protect the land for non-natives too," says Susan Levi-Peters, the former Chief of Elsipogtog. "My people are speaking up for everyone." Others have heard. Since the beginning of the summer, Levi-Peters has seen indigenous Maliseet, Acadians and anglophone New Brunswickers drawn to this new epicentre of resistance on her community's traditional lands. "People care about the water. People care about the environment. This isn't just a native issue."

But let's be clear about one way this is a "native issue": the rush underway for dirtier and more extreme fossil fuels and minerals, in New Brunswick and across Canada, is just the latest stage of colonial pillage. It's a badly-kept secret that Canada's oil, gas and mineral wealth, the key to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's reckless resource obsession, are mostly on Indigenous lands. And if industry is to have them, the country's national myths must be summoned. In last week's Speech from the Throne, Harper praised the "courage and audacity" of the country's "pioneers," who "forged an independent country where non would have otherwise existed." A day later, the raid on Elsipogtog was effectively a footnote.

Levi-Peters says the Mi'kmaq remember the "audacity" all too well. How their nation signed a peace and friendship treaty in 1761 to let the English settle but not to trample Mi'kmaq interests. How before they came for the shale gas, they came for the timber, the fish, the wildlife. And then for the children, locked away in residential schools and split from their connection to the land. The farms that were burnt to push them onto reserves. And how every act of resistance has been greeted by the same lectures from authority. "In no way can we as a country of laws condone the breaking of laws and violence," Premier Alward reminded them on Friday. 

Tell that to Levi-Peters and the rest of the Mi'kmaq, who have been betrayed again and again by the law. The Canadian Supreme Court's judgment in the historic Marshall case in 1999 recognized the Mi'kmaq rights to fish for a living. But when the Mi'kmaq's attempted to practice that right, their boats were rammed by government officials, their nets destroyed by non-native fishers agitated by state misinformation. That same judgment confirmed that the treaty of 1761 had never surrendered their lands. That Elsipogtog still owns, in fact, what SNW Resources now covets. And that the injunction order by a provincial judge is a convenient legal fiction, backed only by the power of brute police force.

This is the vast and enduring violence that is scarcely spoken of: a history of dispossession and resource theft under the guise of the "law." What Harper and every premier now offers indigenous peoples are promises they will have "every opportunity to benefit." They won't. In Elsipogtog, unemployment tips 80 percent and they want jobs, but fracking is too great a risk. As many as twenty people crowd into one house, in a community that needs 500 new homes. Their share of a multi-billion dollar resource rush will be destitution and despair on its outskirts.

But in the protest movement against shale gas, many young Indigenous people have discovered a new reason for hope. Like one young man, 17 years old, who has camped at the site for the last weeks. "I'm worried about the water and the future of my children," he says. He is among the terrifying warriors that shale gas-drunk politicians unleashed an armed police force on last week. Anxious that this might come, Levi-Peters sent a message this summer to the Premier. "You're going to make criminals out of us, because there is no way we can allow the fracking," she wrote him. His office never bothered to reply. She now has his response: Harper's pioneers aim to march on.

Unless, of course, Canadians are prepared to break with the past. Many are. Tens of thousands have signed petitions, and many others marched alongside indigenous peoples in dozens of cities and towns since Thursday. It is a sign that the the actions of the New Brunswick and the Canadian government may backfire. What the government and corporate media crave now is more mayhem, to sell to the public the repression they have sought all along. What they fear most is a movement armed only with drums and eagle feathers and a sacred relationship to the land, touching the hearts of ever more Canadians.

Freed of the distractions, we will be left with a single question. Do we obey provincial dictates that grant a company license to pollute the water? Or the laws of Indigenous peoples, of the Supreme Court, and of our conscience, calling us to protect it? The answer will tell us everything about the kind of country we will have.

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From Rabble.ca

Feathers versus Guns: The throne speech and Canada's war with Mi'kmaw Nation

BY PAMELA PALMATER | OCTOBER 18, 2013

As I write this blog, Canada is at war with the Mi'kmaw Nation -- again -- this time inElsipogtog (Big Cove First Nation) in New Brunswick. The Mi'kmaw have spoken out against hydro-fracking on their territory for many months now. They have tried to get the attention of governments to no avail. Now the Mi'kmaware in a battle of drums and feathers versus tanks and assault rifles -- not the rosy picture painted by Canada to the international community.

The failure by the federal and provincial governments, as well as the Houston-based fracking company, Southwestern Energy, to consult with the Mi'kmaw and obtain their consent is what led to the protests all summer. According to their web page: "In March 2010, the company announced that the Department of Energy and Mines of the Province of New Brunswick, Canada accepted its bids for exclusive licenses to search and conduct an exploration program covering 2,518,518 net acres in the province in order to test new hydrocarbon basins." 

In response, the Mi'kmaw have led peaceful protests at hydro-fracking sites to demonstrate their opposition and protect their lands and resources. They have always asserted their sovereignty, ownership and jurisdiction over their territory. There has been relatively little coverage of their actions, but they have been active for months now. More recently, the company obtained an injunction to stop the protest and it was served on protesters today.

It is more than coincidental timing -- it was obviously strategically calculated with the completion of the Governor General's speech from the throne and the end of the United Nations Special Rapporteur James Anaya's visit to Canada. Yesterday morning, we awoke to reports from the Mi'kmaw of swarms of RCMP dispatched to Elsipogtog to enforce Harper's aggressive natural resource agenda. He has effectively declared war on the Mi'kmaw.

 

This is not the first time Canada has declared war on the Mi'kmaw. In 1981, law enforcement led an attack on the Mi'kmaw at Restigouche to stop them from controlling their own Aboriginal fishery. During this attack, Mi'kmaw suffered multiple injuries, some severe and numerous arrests.

In 1998, the government intervened in Listuguj because the traditional Mi'kmaw government shut down the logging company that was stealing timber from Mi'kmaw lands and because the Mi'kmaw started to harvest their own timber.

Between 1999 and 2001, Canada once again declared war on the Mi'kmaw Nation at Esgenoopitij (Burnt Church First Nation) in NB to stop them from fishing lobster. This was despite the fact the Mi'kmaw had proven their treaty right to fish lobster at the Supreme Court of Canada. Law enforcement rammed Mi'kmaw fishing boats, injured fisherman and issued numerous arrests.

All of these actions were done in violation of the numerous treaties between the Mi'kmaw and the Crown which were peace and friendship treaties intended to once and for all end hostilities and work together as Nation to Nation partners. Given that our treaties are constitutionally protected, Canada's actions are not only tyrannical and oppressive, but also illegal.

Today, in 2013, the government has once again decided that brute force is the way to handle The Mi'kmaw women, elders, and children drumming and singing in peaceful protest against hydro-fracking at Elsipogtog. Media reports 200 RCMP officers were dispatched, some of them from the riot squad, armed with shields, assault rifles, batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray and snipers. Some of the RCMP, in full camo, hid in the woods, while the others formed a large barricade on the highway blocking any movement by protesters.

The Chief and Council were arrested, as well as numerous other protesters all while scrambling cell phone signals, cutting live video feeds and blocking media access to the site. Reports of RCMP pointing their assault rifles at elders and snipers aiming their scopes at children led to the burning of several RCMP cruisers. Yet, so far, the mainstream media has focused on the burning cars and not the acts of violation and intimidation by RCMP on the Mi'kmaw.

This heavy-handed deployment of heavily armed RCMP cops against women and children shows Canada's complete disregard for our fundamental human rights and freedoms, and their ongoing disdain for Indigenous peoples. One RCMP officer's comments summarized government position perfectly: "Crown land belongs to government, not to fucking natives." The RCMP have it wrong -- Mi'kmaw treaties never surrendered our lands and we are still the rightful owners.

Of course, this sounds eerily similar to the words of former Ontario Premier Mike Harris who was reported to have said of the protest at Ipperwash "I want the fucking Indians out of the park."

And we all know what happened there -- law enforcement killed a peaceful unarmed protester named Dudley George. One might wonder if history is going to repeat itself. If we look to the speech from the throne as any indication, Harper has sent Canada on a direct collision course with First Nations -- all in the name of resource development. 

Contrary to the Governor General's introductory comments about Canada using its military force sparingly and that Canada responds "swiftly and resiliently to aid those in need", the strategic wording indicates a much more ominous plan. Canada's position vis-à-vis First Nations and natural resources is laid out as follows: 

- First Nations are incapable of managing their own affairs and Canada will control them and make them accountable via legislation;

- Canada owns the natural resources and will sell them;

- Canada will make major investments in infrastructure to protect these natural resources;

- Canada will increase military strength to protect Canadian sovereignty; and

- Increased military will protect Canada's economy from terrorism.

In other words, Canada does not recognize the ownership or rights of First Nations to their lands, waters and natural resources and will expend billions to ensure that no First Nations prevent the extraction of those resources. Canada and its military have referred to First Nations as terrorists before, and will no doubt be labeled as such when they defend their right to say no to mines or hydro-fracking, like in Elsipogtog for example.

This aggressive display of power and intimidation in Elsipogtog was not met with an equal display of violence. Instead, the women, elders and children continued to drum and chant and pray for the health and safety of their peoples, their Nation and the lands and waters for all Canadians. Instead of scaring people away, this unconstitutional show of force is being met with solidarity blockades all over Canada and the United States.

Listuguj in Quebec has blocked a bridge; Six Nations in Ontario has shut down a highway, there are protests outside Canadian embassies in New York City and Washington; and hundreds of rallies, marches, protests and blockades planned for later today and tomorrow. The horrific images of police violence at Elsipogtog inspired First Nations peoples all over Canada to collect supplies, send warriors and advocate for justice. Harper has inspired Indigenous resistance and action on the ground. There will be more First Nation protests and blockades in the coming days as well.

The Idle No More flame that he lit last year has never faded -- it was just waiting to be fanned once again. The solution has always been there:

1. Respect the Nation to Nation relationship (our sovereignty and jurisdiction over our governments, lands and peoples);

2. Address the current injustices (crises in housing, education, food, water, child and family services, murdered and missing Indigenous women); and

3. Share the benefits and responsibility to protect the lands, water and natural resources like the treaties envisioned.

It's Harper's move now -- more tanks and RCMP violence or a negotiating table?

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From HalifaxMediaCoop.ca

RCMP bring 60 drawn guns, dogs, assault rifles, to serve injunction on the wrong road.

After van, main blocker, removed the night before, RCMP seem hell-bent for violence in early dawn encounter with Warriors.

by MILES HOWE

War Chief Seven Bernard wasunarmed, outmanned and off the path of SWN's injunction. Was any of this necessary? [Photo: Miles Howe]
Grappling with a young Warrior. [Photo: Miles Howe]
Elsipogtog youth runs in fear as RCMP descend into madness. [Photo: Miles Howe]
Far from the Mi'kmaq's last stand. District War Chief Jason Augustine faces down the barrels of 20 pistols. [Photo: Miles Howe]

 

Moncton, New Brunswick - I have been camping at the current blockade along highway 134 since the inception of the encampment, filing almost daily reports for the Media Coop. During June and July of this year, when protests against shale gas exploration in New Brunswick were of far less national interest, I was doing the same.

Around 6am yesterday morning, October 17th, RCMP forces again blocked off both sides of the anti-shale gas encampment along highway 134, this time with an as yet unseen amount of police force. For numerous days prior, RCMP were allowing first walking traffic, then one lane of automobile traffic, to pass freely through the blockaded area. Anti-shale activists, as a measure of good faith, and in deference to emergency vehicles in particular, had days earlier removed two felled trees that had completely blocked off vehicular traffic.

The move, of course, allowed traffic flow to resume to near normal. It also allowed unhindered access to RCMP, who as it will be made clear were scouting out the area and making plans for an ultimate take-down of the traffic-slowing, but completely peaceful, protest.

Yesterday, I first heard that the roads were blocked off by someone screaming in a tented area near the entrance gate to the compound that housed SWN Resources Canada's seismic testing equipment, in the vicinity of where I was camped. At the time, I was asleep.

I could hear police beginning to identify themselves, and a rustling through the trees that suggested numerous bodies moving around. RCMP, I surmised, were everywhere, and the always possible event of the RCMP serving SWN's injunction against blocking their equipment was upon us.

SWN, the Texas-based gas company, had earlier been given a ten day extension to their injunction against the encampment, due to expire on October 21st. We had heard that the injunction had been printed in Irving-owned newspapers. Due to Irving's collusion with SWN (the compound in which SWN's equipment was housed, for example, is Irving-owned), there had been something of a ban on Irving newspapers. We had also been advised by various sources that peace would remain at the encampment until at least Friday, October 18th, when a public hearing against the injunction was set to occur at the Moncton courthouse.

Clearly not.

I grabbed my car keys and ran the 100-odd metres towards the Mi'kmaq Warrior encampment.

What I saw was surprising.

The ditch opposite me was already filled with 20-odd police in tactical blue uniforms, pistols already drawn. Three police officers dressed in full camouflage, one with a short-chained German Shepherd, were also near the ditch.

In the far field, creeping towards the Warrior encampment - which was comprised of one trailer and about ten tent - were at least 35 more police officers. Many of these wore tactical blue and had pistols drawn. At least three officers were wearing full camouflage and had sniper rifles pointed at the amassing group. The Warriors, for their part, numbered about 15.

Through a police loud speaker towards the highway 11 off-ramp, an officer began reading the injunction against the blocking of SWN's seismic equipment. This was all before dawn.

Still in the pre-dawn dark, about seven molotov cocktails flew out of the woods opposite the police line stationed in the ditch. I cannot verify who threw these cocktails. They were - if it matters - lobbed ineffectively at the line of police and merely splashed small lines of fire across the road. A lawn chair caught fire from one cocktail. Two camouflaged officers then pumped three rounds of rubber bullet shotgun blasts into the woods.

Shortly after, three so-called warriors with a journalist in tow - who claim to have arrived two nights ago from Manitoba - appeared to have determined that the situation was too extreme for them. Two of them have since been identified as Harrisen Freison and 'Eagle Claw'. They promptly ran down the road towards the far end of the police blockade. Until last night no one had ever seen these individuals before.

About ten minutes later, with tensions now becoming highly escalated between the encroaching line of police in the field adjacent to the encampment and the Warriors now on a public dirt road, two officers approached Seven Bernard, chief of the Warrior Society. They attempted to serve Bernard with SWN's contentious injunction. Dozens of guns from all angles were pointed at all of us.

Seven Bernard began to walk away from the officer attempting to serve him the injunction. If it matters, the officer in question was the same Sergeant Rick Bernard who had earlier in the summer arrested me on charges of threats and obstruction of justice - both of which amounted to nothing and were subsequently dropped.

Sergeant Bernard threw the injunction at his namesake, saying: "Consider yourself served."

I could hear the RCMP surrounding us speaking about someone having a gun. I did not see any Warrior carrying a firearm. I can say with certainty, however, that no live round was ever fired by the Warrior side. If, as the RCMP are now claiming, that a single shot was discharged, it was not from this altercation.

Before continuing, it is important to note that the Warrior encampment was on government - or Crown - land. Crown land, legally, is being held for Canada's indigenous people, in this case the Mi'kmaq people. Through negligence of the Crown, this is often forgotten, especially by Canada's non-indigenous populations.

Equally as forgotten is the fact that none of Canada's Maritime provinces are ceded land. The Crown is tied to the original indigenous inhabitants - and their land - through treaties of peace and friendship. Nothing more.

It is also important to note that the entire encroaching police formation was focused on a group of about 15 Warriors, all of whom were now on a public dirt road, away from SWN's so-called blockaded equipment.

The injunction was meant to focus on protestors blocking access to SWN's equipment on highway 134. All of the subsequent arrests at this end of the altercation were made on Hannah Road.

With RCMP forces having entirely overwhelmed any remaining activists at the compound gate, the question must be asked:

Why focus on a small band of Warriors, clearly away from all of SWN's equipment and entirely incapable of reforming a blockade, with over 60 guns of various calibre drawn on them?

Indeed, a van belonging to one Lorraine Clair from Elsipogtog First Nation had the evening before been removed from the compound gate. It was the main blocking factor to SWN's - or anybody's, really - access to their equipment.

Tensions at this stand-off further escalated when a group of Elsipogtog youth began running up the dirt road towards the Warriors, and police. It is unclear how the youth, on foot, had managed to come up a back road towards a highly volatile situation. The police attempted to halt the approaching youth, for what reason is unclear.

Mi'kmaq Warrior Suzanne Patles, in a last ditch attempt to defuse a situation now spiralling into a screaming match with police guns pointing in every direction, ran into the middle of the field screaming: "We were given this tobacco last night!"

Now crying, in her hand she held a plug of tobacco, provided to her by RCMP negotiators wrapped in red cloth as a traditional token of peace the night before.

Skirmishes then broke out in every direction. From the highway side, District War Chief Jason Augustine was being chased by numerous police. In front of me, everywhere really, Warriors were being taken down by numerous RCMP officers in various clothes. Rubber bullet shots were fired by the RCMP, and both Jim Pictou and Aaron Francis both claim that they were hit - in the back and leg respectively.

I continued to try photographing what had quickly become a chaotic scene until one officer in camouflage and assault rifle pointed at me, saying: "He's with them. Take him out!"

I was taken to the ground and arrested.

Myself and approximately 25 individuals then spent a varying amount of time at the Codiac detention centre. Some of us, apparently on a haphazard basis, were provided blankets and mattresses. Others spent about 20 hours on hard concrete.

At about 12am, I was taken for fingerprinting and told my charge would be obstruction of justice, for running at an altercation (taking photographs all the while, mind you). I was refused release when I could not procure a $500 note of promise.

An hour later, I was brought back to the release desk. My charge was now mischief, with conditions to stay 1 kilometre away from SWN's equipment and personnel.

I refused to sign these documents at this point, preferring to see a judge the next day. At approximately 3am I was told that all charges against me had been dropped and that I would be read SWN's injunction and then released.

I refused to sign the injunction, and at 3:15am was released into the Moncton night.

I can only assume that my ever-reducing charges were due in no small amount to a public outcry over once again arresting me while covering the ongoing seismic testing story in New Brunswick.

I give thanks for this continued support.

Again, one must wonder at the RCMP's pre-sunrise, decidedly violent, means of attempting to enforce an injunction against blocking SWN's equipment. Again, one must reiterate that neither members or the Mi'kmaq Warrior Society or anyone else was anywhere near the newly-unblocked compound gate. Nor were they at all capable of reforming any blockade style formation.

Again, it must be reiterated that Lorraine Clair's van the main impediment to accessing the equipment had been removed the night before.

Instead, with guns drawn, the RCMP appeared intent on provoking a violent climax on the near three-week blockade.

I say in no uncertain terms that it is miraculous that no one was seriously injured yesterday, indeed killed. The RCMP arrived with pistols drawn, dogs snapping, assault rifles trained on various targets, and bus loads of RCMP waiting from across the province and beyond.

As solidarity actions spring up across the country, yesterday's actions have perhaps invited a far greater climax to New Brunswickers fight against shale gas.

Finally, while the mainstream media will go far to paint this as a "Native" issue, it is vital to remember that the blockade, until yesterday, had been supported by various allies from across the province. It is also key to note that an original 28 groups, representing New Brunswickers from all walks of life, had demanded an end to all shale gas exploration or development.

This all occurred long before images of bandana-ed Indigenous people, who veracity as true grassroots activists and not provocateurs is now being closely examined, ever set fire to a single RCMP squad car in Rexton.

 

 

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From EarthFirstJournal.com

Thursday, October 17th, 2013

UPDATE: Full Invasion Force Arrives at Mi'kmaq Blockade

 from Earth First! Newswire 

700 RCMP are currently reported at the scene of the Mi'kmaq blockade with an armored personnel carrier. Talks have failed. Snipers with the RCMP have been seen pointing their scopes at groups of young supporters, drawing intense criticism from observers. 

In a statement, one RCMP officer declared, "the Crown land belongs to the government, not fucking Natives," revealing the systemic contempt for treaty rights with First Nations and international agreements.

RCMP are now lined up with riot shields, as the standoff continues to maintain the blockade that is currently keeping "thumper trucks" from destroying the land in Mik'maq territory.

Chief Aaron Sock of the Elslipogtog has been released by the RCMP after being arrested while blockading the compound of Texas-based SWN Resources. However, over 40 Mi'kmaq warriors remain in custody, as the RCMP continue to use pepper spray, tear gas, and rubber bullets in attempts to break up the blockade.  Canada is clearly in violation of international treaties with this war-like act against a peaceful nation engaged in lawful direct action against the theft and destruction of their land by a multinational energy company. According to Submedia, "During my short stay [at the two-week-strong blockade] I've witnessed the co-operation between natives and settlers, a partnership that has kept this blockade fully stocked and operational. Food, wood, hot coffee, tents and other supplies keep streaming all the while SWN berates the police in the media for not arresting the protesters." In retaliation against the invasion, which comes one day before an international day of solidarity with the Mi'kmaq Blockade and two days away from a meeting set to continue peace talks, unknown persons have set six RCMP vehicles ablaze, hurled stones at the police line, and confiscated fracking equipment. In related news, SWN stock hit a sharp decline today on the New York Stock Exchange. As of this time, the RCMP is not letting media in. However, reinforcements continue to swell the numbers of supporters at the blockade. The Mi'kmaq have issued a call for continued international solidarity, and for increased support for the blockade.

 

 

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From CBC.ca

Southwestern Energy faces fracking lawsuit

May 24, 2011b

A U.S. company that is seeking to drill for natural gas in New Brunswick is facing a class-action lawsuit in Arkansas over its use of the controversial hydro-fracking procedure.

Southwestern Energy has committed to invest $49 million into the province as a part of a three-year licence to search for oil and gas.

But in the United States it is already facing a claim for damages from about a dozen families in Pennsylvania. Now, another law firm has launched a class-action suit in Arkansas.

Tim Holton, the lead lawyer on the case, said hundreds of people could be included in the latest lawsuit.

Holton said the case started when one family's water well was turned into a gas well allegedly because of nearby fracking.

"The water well next door to their house began to spew methane. So much so that they ended up putting a flare in the person's backyard," Holton said.

Holton said other families have started coming forward with claims.

The lawyer said other people say their water wells have also been contaminated with chemicals, which they blame on the fracking procedure.

The debated hydro-fracking - also known as hydraulic fracturing - has caused many New Brunswick communities to discuss the strength of the province's mining rules.

Hydro-fracturing is a process where exploration companies inject a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the ground, creating cracks in shale rock formations. That process allows companies to extract natural gas from areas that would otherwise go untapped.

The New Brunswick government has hosted a public meeting on the mining procedure.

As well, Southwestern Energy has hosted a series of open sessions to explain its plans.

N.B. urged to be careful

Holton said the New Brunswick government should be careful before allowing Southwestern Energy to use the contentious drilling technique in the province.

"There are rules, there are regulations. The question is: are they being enforced," Holton said.

"And I think to a large extent people wonder exactly how much do we know about what is being done to the earth when you hydraulically frack rock."

The lawsuit asks for millions of dollars in damages.

It also asks the court to order the drilling companies to pay for an independent monitoring of the water supply and health of the families.

The lawsuit was filed last week. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Southwestern Energy has not yet filed a statement of defence.