RE the article about wind power and fracking (The South’s energy battleground, May 19), I would like to eeplain a few home truths about the abomination that is fracking.

I have relatives in Los Angeles and they have kept me well informed as to what is going on over there in regards to their water supplies. California has experienced almost a whole year of continuous drought, and therefore, water is becoming scarce.

Indeed, in December 2014, my aunt told me she received a bill for water for $700 for one month.

The bitter irony here is that about 100 miles north of LA the mining giant Halliburton has several sites it is fracking at present.

As I have pointed out many times on these pages, each well consumes between eight and 16 million gallons in its lifetime.

This water is full of chemicals, and is unfit for consumption to all life as we know it.

Indeed, this water is, for the most part, left in the ground. It then permeates the aquifers from which we draw our water supplies.

So, a giant city of several million people, is going short of water, yet a corporate giant can waste billions of gallons of it in a bid to squeeze oil and gas out of the earth.

Am I the only one who can see the absurdity and injustice of this?

To allow fracking to happen anywhere in this country is, in my opinion, a crime that is tantamount to treason against the people.

To allow it to happen in national parks is even worse. These spaces are vital, as they protect, and propagate, the fragile biodiversity that is essential to our lives. As someone who spent months camped at Balcombe and Barton Moss in Salford, in opposition to this corporate madness, I will not sit idly by and let these people destroy this beautiful country.

When we started at Balcombe, there were five anti-fracking groups in the UK. Now there are 300 so the campaign there succeeded.

However, we are ever vigilant as to what is going on at all levels of government, and we will not go away, as we believe that water is far more important to us than oil.

In finishing, which would you prefer, clean affordable water, or oil and gas, that will go on sale on the open market to the highest bidder?

For me the former is a no-brainer and the latter unthinkable.

Kenny Lloyd Norway Street Portslade