Waycobah drilling facts wrong: oil company head

Some members of Cape Breton's aboriginal community say they're afraid a proposed oil exploration project will harm their way of life, but the head of the company planning to do the work says the information they haveisn't correct.

"There's a lot of misinformation and a lot of hysteria being created over this misinformation in the local area," said Neil Mednick, president of PetroWorth Resources, the Toronto company that has applied to look for oil and gas on 155,000 hectares of land near Lake Ainslie.

An aboriginal group issued a release Wednesday saying they're afraid a drilling method called fracking will ruin salmon spawning rivers and water supplies.

Fracking is a process where water, sand and chemicals are pumped into the ground, creating cracks in shale rock formations. That allows companies to extract natural gas from areas that would otherwise go untapped.

But Mednick said PetroWorth hasn't applied to do fracking.

"What PetroWorth has applied for is to drill a very conventional vertical 1,200 meter deep well. There have been millions of these drilled throughout the world," Mednick said.

Meeting scheduled

Concerns were also expressed about a lack of consultation with the aboriginal community.

PetroWorth hasn't applied for fracking, confirmed Jackie Van Amberg of the province's Aboriginal Affairs department. She alsosaid the department has communicated with the Waycobah Reserve and the Mi'kmaq Rights Grand Council about the project.

"The Mi'kmaq were first notified of the proposed project in 2008 and the province initiated consultation on the exploration license in the fall of 2010," Van Amberg said.

The province and PetroWorth have scheduled an open house Feb. 10 in Waycobah to further discuss the project.

"The meeting is an opportunity for the Mi'kmaq to pose the questions they have on this potential project and get some answers and have some dialogue," said Van Amberg. "I should add that this is also an opportunity for the Mi'kmaq to speak directly with the company."