The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around
the world, yet the people who live in the
have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades
John Vidal
The Observer
May 30, 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian
plantations. Ahead of us lay swamp. We waded into the
warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and
notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil
long before we saw it - the stench of garage forecourts
and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air.
The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became.
Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude,
the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many
hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the
greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people
were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked.
"We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots," said Chief
Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. "This
is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest.
We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did
nothing for six months."
That was the
according to Nigerian academics, writers and
environment groups, oil companies have acted with such
impunity and recklessness that much of the region has
been devastated by leaks.
In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network
of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms
every year than has been lost in the
the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by
oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the
explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month.
That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig
workers, has made headlines round the world. By
contrast, little information has emerged about the
damage inflicted on the
destruction there provides us with a far more accurate
picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.
On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in
the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million
gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak
was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the
company but say they were attacked by security guards.
Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in
compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood
they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the
meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along
the coast.
Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of
oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans
pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that,
a large oil slick was found floating on
Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced
with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of
which are 40 years old," said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.
This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community
leader in Ibeno: "Oil companies do not value our life;
they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have
experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer
sustain their families. It is not tolerable."
With 606 oilfields, the
the crude the
capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural
communities, half of which have no access to clean
water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the
past two generations. Locals blame the oil that
pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the
contrast with the steps taken by BP and the
government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to
protect the
"If this Gulf accident had happened in
the government nor the company would have paid much
attention," said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the
Ogoni people. "This kind of spill happens all the time
in the delta."
"The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do not
care and people must live with pollution daily. The
situation is now worse than it was 30 years ago.
Nothing is changing. When I see the efforts that are
being made in the
the double standards. What they do in the
"We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in
the
the Earth International. "But in
largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy
people's livelihood and environments. The Gulf spill
can be seen as a metaphor for what is happening daily
in the oilfields of
"This has gone on for 50 years in
depend completely on the environment for their drinking
water and farming and fishing. They are amazed that the
president of the
because in
whimper," he said.
It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the
government keep that secret. However, two major
independent investigations over the past four years
suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps
and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of
One report, compiled by WWF
government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation,
calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5m tons of oil - 50
times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez
tanker disaster in
delta over the past half century. Last year Amnesty
calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels
of oil was spilled and accused the oil companies of a
human rights outrage.
According to Nigerian federal government figures, there
were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and
there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many
going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones
still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill
cases have been filed against Shell alone.
Last month Shell admitted to spilling 14,000 tonnes of
oil in 2009. The majority, said the company, was lost
through two incidents - one in which the company claims
that thieves damaged a wellhead at its Odidi field and
another where militants bombed the Trans Escravos
pipeline.
Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian
government in the delta, says that 98% of all its oil
spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by
militants and only a minimal amount by deteriorating
infrastructure. "We had 132 spills last year, as
against 175 on average. Safety valves were vandalised;
one pipe had 300 illegal taps. We found five explosive
devices on one. Sometimes communities do not give us
access to clean up the pollution because they can make
more money from compensation," said a spokesman.
"We have a full-time oil spill response team. Last year
we replaced 197 miles of pipeline and are using every
known way to clean up pollution, including microbes. We
are committed to cleaning up any spill as fast as
possible as soon as and for whatever reason they
occur."
These claims are hotly disputed by communities and
environmental watchdog groups. They mostly blame the
companies' vast network of rusting pipes and storage
tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping
stations and old wellheads, as well as tankers and
vessels cleaning out tanks.
The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The
government's national oil spill detection and response
agency (Nosdra) says that between 1976 and 1996 alone,
more than 2.4m barrels contaminated the environment.
"Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has
been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and
destroying vegetation. These incidents have become
common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures
within the existing political regime," said a spokesman
for Nosdra.
The sense of outrage is widespread. "There are more
than 300 spills, major and minor, a year," said Bassey.
"It happens all the year round. The whole environment
is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the
massive difference in the response to oil spills. In
treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm."
A spokesman for the Stakeholder Democracy Network in
affected by the oil companies' activities, said: "The
response to the spill in the
as a stiff reminder as to how far spill management in
Other voices of protest point out that the world has
overlooked the scale of the environmental impact.
Activist Ben Amunwa, of the London-based oil watch
group Platform, said: "Deepwater Horizon may have
exceed Exxon Valdez, but within a few years in
offshore spills from four locations dwarfed the scale
of the Exxon Valdez disaster many times over. Estimates
put spill volumes in the
the planet, but they do not include the crude oil from
waste water and gas flares. Companies such as Shell
continue to avoid independent monitoring and keep key
data secret."
Worse may be to come. One industry insider, who asked
not to be named, said: "Major spills are likely to
increase in the coming years as the industry strives to
extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult
terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and
harder to work. When things go wrong, it will be harder
to respond."
Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the
a book about oil development in
leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in
oilfields all over the world and very few people seem
to care."
There is an overwhelming sense that the big oil
companies act as if they are beyond the law. Bassey
said: "What we conclude from the
pollution incident is that the oil companies are out of control.
"It is clear that BP has been blocking progressive
legislation, both in the
have been living above the law. They are now clearly a
danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening
again and again are high. They must be taken to the
international court of justice."
_____________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment