Jessica Ernst

The Brutal Legal Odyssey of Jessica Ernst Comes to an End

The Brutal Legal Odyssey of Jessica Ernst Comes to an End

After 14 years of battling Alberta regulators and the fracking industry over a water well contaminated with methane and chemicals, Jessica Ernst says she feels incalculable grief and anger. On April 1, 2021, her tortuous legal crusade — which included a controversial detour to the Supreme Court of Canada — came to an end with no resolution. What one Alberta lawyer dubbed “the legal saga of the decade” is over. Court of Queen’s Bench Judge J.T. Eamon accepted applications from Encana and the Alberta government to dismiss the case due to inactivity on the file for three years. “It was inevitable,” says Ernst who was informed three weeks after the dismissal. “The rules are the rules.”