As Drought Grinds On In NE British Columbia, Fracking Water Consumption In Area Rose 50% In 2024

As drought in British Columbia’s Peace River region leads to massive wildfires and the City of Dawson Creek scrambles to find a new water source, a report released today concludes that water use by the region’s fracking industry shot up a record 50 per cent last year.

That surge, warns Stand.earth, is only the beginning, given the province’s newfound status as an international gas exporter and with government and industry plans calling for even more processing and exporting facilities in the future. “Earlier this year, the first liquefied natural gas export terminal in Canada, LNG Canada, came online, creating a new demand for fracked gas from B.C.’s Peace River region,” the report states.

“As the number of new fracking wells surges to meet increased demand, we are beginning to see even more social and environmental impacts to the communities in the Peace River region due to resource extraction.” The Stand.earth report relies on water use data collected by the BC Energy Regulator, or BCER, formerly known as the BC Oil and Gas Commission.

The data is focused only on the water that the industry uses under short-term water permits and water licences issued by the regulator. The regulator’s water reports don’t include water purchased from private sources. That may include water from an extensive network of dugouts and dams purpose-built to capture surface water and groundwater, as well as wastewater generated at fracking operations and sometimes reused. Despite its limitations, the regulator’s reporting shows that oil and gas industry water use under short-term and long-term authorizations leapt from just over six million cubic metres in 2023 to more than nine million cubic metres in 2024, an amount great enough to submerge nearly 1,700 football fields under a metre of water.

EDIT

https://thetyee.ca/News/2025/10/09/Fracking-Water-Demand-Soared-Northeast-BC/