This is the opinion of Treasure Karoo Action Group chairman Jonathan Deal, who said yesterday: "This incident demonstrates precisely why we have raised serious concerns about fracking in South Africa.

"We simply cannot allow any threat to South Africa's water resources, never mind the other very real dangers this process creates."

Fracking is currently banned or under moratoriums and restrictions in more than 90 locations in five countries, Deal said.

"Here we have a situation where people in North America and Canada are, on a daily basis, forced to live with polluting incidents and accidents. There can be no possible justification for the South African government to invest any more time on even considering fracking in this country until issues such as these have been settled by scientific consensus and an inclusive national debate.

"If the government lifts the moratorium and issues any form of exploration licence for fracking under the current circumstances, the only recourse open to TKAG will be to seek the protection of our courts."

TKAG is opposed to fracking in South Africa before independent comprehensive scientific research has been conducted, showing what the impact of fracking could be.

Deal's comments relate to a widely reported well blow-out on January 13 in Calgary, Canada. The blow-out is being investigated by the provincial energy regulator in Canada.

In this incident, fracking fluid, under pressure from a well belonging to another company, appears to have travelled through fault lines and fissures until it breached an older well hundreds of metres away, causing the fluid, under pressure, to blow out of that well.

ERCB spokesperson Cara Tobin has been quoted as saying: "(My) understanding is that it appears the fracking process affected the other well."

The ERCB further admitted to the press that "(the ERCB) is aware of similar incidents of 'communication' between wells as a result of fracking."

"Communication" is an event in which the fracking process creates pressure, which escapes into an underground fault system, Deal said.

"The fluids used to achieve the fracking process travel along natural fissures and weaknesses in surrounding rock until they migrate into an area where the pressure is absorbed.

"In this case, the path was to a well hundreds of metres away and, according to reports, the different pressure caused that well to blow out."

In relation to the same incident, Deal said, Don Bester, a retired Canadian mining engineer who chairs the Alberta Surface Rights Group, has been quoted as saying: "We're concerned that these things are going to start damaging aquifers. If they hit another well, like this one here, what if they (communicate) and put all that frack fluid into an aquifer and destroy it?"

Bester said he was concerned that "fracking propagates out so far that if they hit one of these natural fracture systems, they will just follow the natural channel straight up from a high pressure zone to a low pressure zone".

His view has been supported by Matt Horne, a director of the Pembina Institute, a Canadian Environmental think-tank, Deal said. Horne has been quoted as saying that "incidents like this and the recent Environmental Protection Agency study about the pollution of aquifers in Wyoming, US, all add weight to concerns being raised about hydraulic fracturing".