From the award-winning author of Tar Sands comes the shocking, inspiring story of an oil and gas industry insider’s determined stand to hold government and industry legally accountable for the damage fracking leaves in its wake.

When Jessica Ernst’s well water turned into a flammable broth that even her dogs refused to drink, the biologist and long-time oil patch consultant discovered that energy giant Encana had secretly fracked hundreds of gas wells around her home, piercing her community’s drinking water aquifer. Since then, her ongoing lawsuit against Encana, Alberta Environment, and the Energy Resources Conservation Board has made her a folk hero in many places worldwide where fracking is underway. In this powerful work of investigative journalism, Andrew Nikiforuk interweaves Ernst’s story with the science of fracking and stories of human and environmental repercussions left in its wake. Slick Water raises dramatic questions about the role of Big Oil in government, society’s obsession with rapidly depleting supplies of unconventional oil and gas, and the future of civil society.