New technology promises to clean subsurface rock and dispose of any waste materials by environmentally sensitive means
CALGARY, Alberta – The modern environmental movement, which began in the 1960s with concern about air and water pollution, became broader in scope to include all landscapes and human activities. As public awareness and the environmental sciences have improved in recent years, environmental issues have grown to include key concepts such as sustainability and also emerging concerns such as ozone depletion, global cooling, acid rain, land use, and bio-genetic pollution – all concerns within the domain of the earth’s surface and atmosphere.
But a group of concerned citizens from Calgary and area have decided to get back to first principles and look at environmentalism from a completely new perspective – from within our dear planet earth.
J. Pickens
“Sure it’s commonplace nowadays among the unicycle-riding, man-bun sportin’, plaid shirt wearin’, skinny jean rockin’, big-bearded hipsters to complain about the environment that we can see and feel, but we felt it was time to dig a little deeper into the environment that we cannot see – the subsurface. It’s just like anything else, if you’re not healthy and clean on the inside, how can you possibly be healthy and clean on the outside? The planet is no different.” – J. Pickens, founder of the subsurface environmentalism movement
The group, lead by J. Pickens, raised capital to form an organization called Clean Rock Environmental, whose mission statement is to “Clean the subsurface environment, one dirty little area at a time.”
Clean Rock: The subsurface environment is as important as what’s up here
According to the Calgary-area not-for-profit outfit, the earth contains deposits of a dirty hydrocarbon-based fluid that wreaks havoc on local subsurface ecosystems. The company’s plan is to make a number of holes into the ground into these environmentally unfriendly deposits, force water and soap into some of the holes and use the other holes to suck up with water along with the environmentally unfriendly dirty brown liquid. During this process a lot of the waste fluid is removed from the rock and sand which thereby improves the local environment for microorganisms in the rock.
Dr. Goldblacker
“Yeah, People don’t really seem to think about the environment for those little MICROORGANISMS under the ground – but we do! so far this new process is proving to be quite successful, it’s just sometimes hard to find these waste fluid deposits. But once we find one, we continue to cycle water through the rock until we can get it as clean as can be. There are areas where we know that the waste fluid exists, but it is very difficult to push water and soap through the rock, so we have to keep forcing water down the holes harder and harder until finally the water makes its way through.” – Dr. Stacey Goldblacker, subsurface environmental Scientist with Clean Rock
When asked at a press release what happens with the liquid waste product that is collected at the surface of some of the holes, a company spokesperson described how it is transported to a facility where it is processed and recycled into products made of plastic, and refined into other products that can provide the energy to move vehicles and heat homes.
An example of one of the deposits of subsurface gunk that Clean Rock is trying to remote to protect sensitive underground ecosystems. Source: Clean Rock Environmental
“To keep our not-for-profit status, we aren’t allowed to sell this waste product, so we give it to these processing facilities for free. However, these processing facilities do make charitable donations to us to more than cover our operational costs, and enable us to grow and clean more rock.” – J. Pickens, founder
Alberta Energy Regulator investigating Clean Rock’s enviro practices
Opponents to the technology abound and include Alberta’s oil and gas regulatory body, who is currently investigating the not-for-profit organization for bypassing the regulatory application process, mandates, and requirements that are in place for PNG extraction.
One of Clean Rock Environmental’s facilities used to process the waste by-product from cleaning up the underground rocks
According to the associated press, the AER has sent a series of undercover inspectors, posing as operators, to the areas where Clean Rock Environmental operates to gather evidence to support the AER’s claim that the company is more interested in producing and selling oil than it is protecting the subsurface environment.
“They make their holes in the ground using the same equipment that the oil and gas producers use – the same damn drilling and completion rigs. And the facilities they use to process their waste product look just like an oil battery. But this evidence is only circumstantial”
Once enough evidence is gathered the AER is planning to file a lawsuit against J. Pickens and Clean Rock for avoiding royalty evasion.
