Get a copy of
Clean Energy Fuels - A new book on Renewable Energy Fuels.
|
The result, in the form of a report, of the
Environmental Site Assessment of Ogoniland, one of the oil producing
region in Nigeria was delivered to the Nigerian president, President Goodluck Jonathan on August 4, 2011. The environmental assessment was
conducted by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) with a funding provided by Shell Petroleum,
a major oil company that have benefited from the oil in the area for the
past 50 years. UNEP said, Shell provided the fund under the polluter-pay
principle.
Environmental (Site) Assessment is usually
required to identify the type, nature and extent of pollution prior to
developing a plan for the clean up of a polluted environment. According to
the UNEP report, the land and water environments of the Ogoniland has been
seriously contaminated and the clean-up may take up to 25 to 30 years to
complete and could cost several billions of dollars.
|
|
The report ascertained that the oil
pollution is attributable to over 50 years of oil explorations in the
region.
The assessment study, which commenced in
2009, lasted for over a 14-month period. It examined
over 200 locations, surveyed 122 kilometres of pipeline rights of
way, analyzed 4,000 soil and water samples, reviewed more than 5,000
medical records and engaged over 23,000 people at local community
meetings.
The study found that in several
communities the drinking water is contaminated with high levels of
petroleum hydrocarbons. An instance is the Nisisioken Ogale, near a Nigerian National Petroleum
Company pipeline, families are drinking water from wells contaminated
with benzene, a known carcinogen, at levels over 900 times above World
Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. These raises public health
concerns and require very urgent actions. Lands and the air environment
are also polluted. While the water and land pollutions are localized to
community, the air pollutions are, expectedly pervasive and affect the
over 1 million people living within the Ogoniland
Other findings of the report include:
-
Control and maintenance of oilfield
infrastructure in Ogoniland has been and remains inadequate: the Shell
Petroleum Development Company's own procedures have not been applied,
creating public health and safety issues.
-
The impact of oil on mangrove vegetation
has been disastrous. Oil pollution in many intertidal creeks has left
mangroves-nurseries for fish and natural pollution filters- denuded of
leaves and stems with roots coated in a layer of bitumen-type substance
sometimes one centimetre or more thick.
-
The five highest concentrations of Total
Petroleum Hydrocarbons detected in groundwater exceed 1 million
micrograms per litre (µg/l) - compared to the Nigerian standard for
groundwater of 600 µg/l.
-
When an oil spill occurs on land, fires
often break out, killing vegetation and creating a crust over the land,
making remediation or revegetation difficult. At some sites, a crust of
ash and tar has been in place for several decades.
-
The surface water throughout the creeks in
and surrounding Ogoniland contain hydrocarbons. Floating layers of oil
vary from thick black oil to thin sheens.
-
Despite community concerns, the results
show that fish consumption in Ogoniland, either of those caught locally
or purchased from markets, was not posing a health risk.
“It is UNEP’s hope that the findings can break the decades of deadlock
in the region and provide the foundation upon which trust can be built
and action undertaken to remedy the multiple health and sustainable
development issues facing people in Ogoniland,” UNEP Executive Director,
Achim Steiner said.
The UNEP team could come up with a
remedial action to address the Ogoniland pollution. Remediation by
enhanced natural attenuation (RENA) - a way of boosting the ability of
naturally-occurring microbes to breakdown oil and so far the only
remediation method observed by UNEP in Ogoniland - has not proven to be
effective. Currently, Shell Petroleum Development Company applies this
technique on the land surface layer only, based on the
assumption that given the kind of oil concerned, factors such as
temperature and an underlying layer of clay, hydrocarbons will not move
deeper. However, in 49 cases UNEP observed hydrocarbons in soil at
depths of at least 5 m.
In the mean time, the report has suggested
the following:
-
that an Ogoniland Environmental
Restoration Authority be established as
soon as possible. The Authority's activities should be funded by an
Environmental Restoration Fund for Ogoniland, to be set up with an
initial capital injection of US$1 billion contributed by the oil
industry and the government, to cover the first five years of the
clean-up project;
-
an integrated soil management centre
to be built in Ogoniland and supported by hundreds of mini-centres to
treat contaminated soil and provide hundreds of job opportunities be
established;
-
creating a Centre of Excellence in
Environmental Restoration in Ogoniland to promote learning and
benefit other communities impacted by oil contamination in the Niger
Delta and elsewhere in the world.
-
Reforms of environmental government
regulation, monitoring and enforcement, and improved practices by the
oil industry.
For more detailed information on the
findings and recommendations of the Environmental Assessment of
Ogoniland Report, readers are encouraged to download the report below or
follow the various links provided below.
|
