- Bishop Hill blog

Here's another of those stories I got from my visit to Dart Energy.

Back in April a story appeared in the Glasgow Herald reporting claims that some of Dart's coalbed methane wells at Canonbie in Dumfriesshire were leaking. Written by veteran very green reporter Rob Edwards, the story was rather exciteable, but a bit reticent about explaining who the main protagonists were:

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is launching an investigation into claims that methane is "bubbling up" in wells drilled to test for the gas in coal seams near Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway. The claim is denied by the company that owns the wells.

The Sunday Herald received information claiming gas was escaping in the wells.

The information was passed to Sepa, which promised to investigate. "Sepa has recently become aware of information regarding the potential release of gas from coal-bed methane wells in the Canonbie area," said a Sepa spokesman. "Sepa will shortly be carrying out investigations into this."

So there was no indication of who the source of the information about the alleged leak was and even the identity of the person who passed the information to Sepa is somewhat uncertain - from the way the text is written it would appear to have been Edwards, but there is room for doubt.

The following day Friends of the Earth Scotland picked up the story with their own inimitable approach to truth and accuracy: the headline reads "Leaks at Canonbie should signal the end for Dart's dirty gas plans". No room for doubt there then - there's a leak. In fact the article switches between "if there turn out to be leaks" to "the leaks mean they should be shut down" without apparently batting an eyelid. This is, of course, part of the modus operandi of the green activist.

A month later Sepa gave the wells an unequivocally clean bill of health, in particular noting that there was no evidence of the "bubbling up" that Rob Edwards had reported. Unfortunately, the report does not indicate the source of the complaint, saying only that there had been "allegations".

So there's a mystery here. Who told Rob Edwards that there was a leak? Who told Sepa? And did Rob Edwards investigate before writing the story, or was his source so unimpeachable that he felt he didn't need to bother? There's so much we don't know.

One thing we do know is that Rob Edwards has never written about the outcome of the Sepa investigation or corrected his story.

What can you say?

Update on Nov 23, 2013 by

Bishop Hill

Rob Edwards emails to say that he did report the outcome of the Sepa investigation.

On 24 June 2013, I added an update to the end of the story on my website reporting the outcome of Sepa’s investigation:

http://www.robedwards.com/2013/04/probe-into-leaking-gas-claims.html

The investigation’s outcome was also reported in stories published by the Sunday Herald and on my website on 29 June 2013:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/environment/scottish-fracking-licences-to-be-dropped.21483645

http://www.robedwards.com/2013/06/scottish-fracking-licences-to-be-dropped.html

Update on Nov 23, 2013 by

Bishop Hill

I asked Rob Edwards a couple of follow up questions

Did you attempt to verify the claims made?
Was it you that contacted Sepa?

The answer was as follows:

When I received the allegations, I asked both Dart and Sepa if they were true and reported what they said.

I then asked him to confirm that he was the source through which Sepa found out about the allegations. I also suggested that his own source must have been reputable for him to file the story without further checking of the facts.

He answered in the affirmative to both of these propositions.