Tuesday 4 March 2014
State alumni team meets KEDAN
Senate
Abuja, Jan.30, 2012 The Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology has on Wednesday in Abuja vowed to strengthen relevant legislation to ensure stringent penalties against companies involved in oil spill.
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Bukola Saraki made the pledge during the committee’s oversight visit to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA)
Saraki expressed the determination of the Committee to help the agency to acquire the necessary legislative and operational capacity to effectively check oil spillage by multinational oil companies.
`` We have been responsible and we have treated the multinationals with a level of responsibility as partners in progress and we must get to the bottom of this menace of oil spillage.
``We will ensure zero tolerance to the issue of oil spillage. We will ensure that the laws are strengthened, especially in your penalties.
``This is the only country where companies will carry out spillage and you pick up the laws and guidelines and find nothing that holds anybody accountable,’’ Saraki declared.
A member of the Committee, Sen. Ben Ayade (Cross River-PDP) said the agency was not professional in the way it responded to the problem of oil spillage.
``What we have seen and heard so far is like you are making a mockery of this country. This is a big departure from your mission statement.
``You lack the capacity and equipment to discharge your mandate of detecting oil spillage. You also lack the professional standards in your approach to doing the job.
Earlier, the Director-General of NOSDRA Mr Peter Idabor had appealed for enactment of of an enabling Act by the National Assembly to facilitate appropriate sanctions on erring companies.
He also accused Agip Oil and Shell Petroleum Development Company as the companies responsible for the bulk of oil spill in the Niger Delta.
``Even though we have other oil spills, the main bulk of oil spill in Nigeria is caused by Agip and Shell. They are the largest culprits, ’’he added.
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Bukola Saraki made the pledge during the committee’s oversight visit to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA)
Saraki expressed the determination of the Committee to help the agency to acquire the necessary legislative and operational capacity to effectively check oil spillage by multinational oil companies.
`` We have been responsible and we have treated the multinationals with a level of responsibility as partners in progress and we must get to the bottom of this menace of oil spillage.
``We will ensure zero tolerance to the issue of oil spillage. We will ensure that the laws are strengthened, especially in your penalties.
``This is the only country where companies will carry out spillage and you pick up the laws and guidelines and find nothing that holds anybody accountable,’’ Saraki declared.
A member of the Committee, Sen. Ben Ayade (Cross River-PDP) said the agency was not professional in the way it responded to the problem of oil spillage.
``What we have seen and heard so far is like you are making a mockery of this country. This is a big departure from your mission statement.
``You lack the capacity and equipment to discharge your mandate of detecting oil spillage. You also lack the professional standards in your approach to doing the job.
Earlier, the Director-General of NOSDRA Mr Peter Idabor had appealed for enactment of of an enabling Act by the National Assembly to facilitate appropriate sanctions on erring companies.
He also accused Agip Oil and Shell Petroleum Development Company as the companies responsible for the bulk of oil spill in the Niger Delta.
``Even though we have other oil spills, the main bulk of oil spill in Nigeria is caused by Agip and Shell. They are the largest culprits, ’’he added.
The Committee on Wednesday also paid an oversight visit to the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Agency (NESREA) where it promised to ensure the agency was given adequate funding.
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Saraki said the agency would be given more legal backing to ensure it effectively monitored compliance to environmental standards for overall protection of the environment.
``We will help find ways of providing funds to the agency to ensure that you are not just an agency by name but an agency that has the ability to bite effectively when you need to,’’ he stated.
Also speaking, another member of the Committee, Sen. Helen Esuene urged the agency to remain focused on delivering on its mandate of regulating and enforcing standards.
``You need not lose your focus of regulation and enforcement of standards to ensure strict observance of the laws by operators in our environment,’’ she said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Environment, Mrs Hadiza Mailafiya urged the Senate to review the proposal in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) transfer of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to the Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR)
Mailafiya made the call during an oversight visit to the Ministry by the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology.
She appealed to the Committee to help create awareness on environmental sustainability by mobilizing the people for advocacy.
Chairman of the committee acknowledged that proper attention had not been given to environmental issues adding that the trend must be reversed to address the ills in the sector.
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Saraki said the agency would be given more legal backing to ensure it effectively monitored compliance to environmental standards for overall protection of the environment.
``We will help find ways of providing funds to the agency to ensure that you are not just an agency by name but an agency that has the ability to bite effectively when you need to,’’ he stated.
Also speaking, another member of the Committee, Sen. Helen Esuene urged the agency to remain focused on delivering on its mandate of regulating and enforcing standards.
``You need not lose your focus of regulation and enforcement of standards to ensure strict observance of the laws by operators in our environment,’’ she said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Environment, Mrs Hadiza Mailafiya urged the Senate to review the proposal in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) transfer of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to the Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR)
Mailafiya made the call during an oversight visit to the Ministry by the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology.
She appealed to the Committee to help create awareness on environmental sustainability by mobilizing the people for advocacy.
Chairman of the committee acknowledged that proper attention had not been given to environmental issues adding that the trend must be reversed to address the ills in the sector.
Thursday 2 February 2012
Press Release on the Bonga Oil Spill
The members of the United States Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund Project on Kenaf Clean-up hereby express our regret and concern about the massive oil spillage in the Bonga Field on Tuesday, 20th December, 2011.
While the federal government of Nigeria is planning to conduct a detailed investigation to ascertain the extent and cause of the incident (system or human error), Royal Dutch Shell says the spill has been halted and clean-up is expected to be completed within six weeks.
While still uncertain about the details, it has been estimated that about 40,000 barrels of crude oil has been lost spanning about 120 kilometres off the southern coast of Nigeria.
The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), said the leakage could be three times as large as Shell contends and that this could be the country’s worst case of oil pollution in 10 years.
However, the size of the spill may be even larger. SkyTruth, a nonprofit group based in West Virginia that uses satellite imagery to detect environmental problems, estimated the oil spill might stretch across roughly 350 square miles (920 square kilometers) of ocean — three times what Nigerian authorities believe.
It has also come to our notice that dispersants are being used for the clean-up. We wish to condemn this method in its entirety for the following reasons:
1. Dispersants are a group of chemicals designed to be sprayed onto oil slicks to accelerate the process of natural dispersion. Their use is intended to minimise the damage caused by floating oil, but, as with most available spill response options, the use of dispersants has limitations and should be carefully planned and controlled.
Our questions then are: (i) who approved the dispersants being used? (approval and authorization must be given by the responsible government agency before any dispersant is used); (ii) was there a thorough monitoring and assessment plan for the application of the dispersant(s) being used?
2. Dispersants dissipate large amounts of oil from the sea surface by transferring it into the water column. They will cause the oil slick to break up and form water-soluble micelles that are rapidly diluted. The oil is then effectively spread throughout a larger volume of water than the surface from where the oil was dispersed. They can also delay the formation of persistent oil-in-water emulsions. However, laboratory experiments have shown that dispersants increased toxic hydrocarbon levels in fish by a factor of up to 100 and may kill fish eggs
3. In the United States, dispersants are used underwater only with continuous and rigorous monitoring of its effectiveness and impact on the environment and the government reserves the right to discontinue the use of a dispersant method if negative impacts on the environment outweigh the benefits. Please recall that a dispersant was used in an attempt to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and the use was discontinued as there was not enough wave action to mix the dispersant with the oil in the water. Who is monitoring to ensure this in the Bonga oil spill and how?
4. To date, the use of subsurface dispersants has not been approved in the U.S.A. and we condemn the use of dispersants in the Bonga oil spill because this is being carried out without following safe and due procedures
Within the last decade, chemical procedures for oil spill clean-up have been replaced by biological control (bio-control) methods which have been described as safe and environmentally friendly.
One of such bio-control agents is the Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus) plant.
Kenaf fibre is non-toxic, non-abrasive and is more effective than classical remediants, like clay and silica.
Our project, sponsored by the alumni office of the U. S. Department of State is aimed at using local plants like Kenaf for oil spill clean-up in Nigeria’s Niger Delta through a participatory and community-integrated strategy that we believe is sustainable.
We are worried that this spillage which has been likened to that of the BP in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, is being treated with ''kid gloves''. There is evidence that the Bonga Oil Field tragedy is spreading to all parts of the Niger Delta and outside our country with indications that Brazil could be vulnerable. While Shell states that the spill has been contained, Friends of the Earth and Environmental Rights Action who are on ground at the site have reported that communities in Odioama located in the Niger Delta have seen some unsuspected slicks.
This spillage at Shell's Bonga FPSO is feared to be moving fast towards the shores putting birds, vegetation, other marine resources and vessel navigation at risk. We therefore advise that representatives from the affected communities be invited by the responsible Federal Government agency like NOSDRA to certify an oil spillage as been completely contained as Shell claims.
Signed:
Dr. Moji Edema Dr. Morufat Balogun
Chairperson, Publicity Committee Project Team Leader
Monday 28 November 2011
Integrating Communities into Oil Spill Clean up with Local Plants in Nigeria's Niger Delta
Nigeria............ is a country of great variety of landforms, with areas of about 923,768km2. Its population is about 140 million people. Nigeria comprises the creeks and lagoons, the Niger Delta, the coastal plains, the river basin troughs, the inselberg landscapes, the Chad basin and the eastern highlands.
| Maps of Nigeria showing the 36 states (left) and the oil rich Niger-Delta region (right) in red |
The Niger Delta..............
From geo-morphological point of view, the Niger Delta (Caption above) extends from Forcados in the west to the Bonny River in the east, a distance of about 350 km, and from the apex of the delta at Aboh to the coastline which is about 16 km. Most of the 10,000 km2 of the delta is made up of swamps, with a few islanders of solid red earth, trending north-south, which form the only firm dry land {National Oil Spill Contigency Plan (NOSCP), 2000}.
The Niger Delta and the contiguous coastal and inland areas are rich in agricultural resources – fish, farmlands, economic trees, water bodies used for various purposes, the sensitive ecosystem itself, etc. Moreover, there are several inhabited areas within the Delta. Consequently there is a high level of maritime economic activities – ports, movement of several ocean-going vessels. Due to the culture of subsistence farming and fishing all over the country, the local inhabitants cannot but depend on their respective immediate environments.
The good and the bad.............Energy source versus environmental threat
Oil exploration activities span the length and breadth of Nigeria. The activities include seismic, exploration, production, and storage, transportation by ocean-going vessels and pipelines, and processing. The activities vary in intensity in different areas but, they are concentrated mainly in the Niger Delta region (NOSCP, 2000).
The major risk associated with oil exploration facilities is oil spillage due to rupture of major delivery lines, tank failure in any terminal, tanker accident within the Nigerian waters, oil well blowout, marketing of refined products, human error and sabotage. All these have massively polluted land and water in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, paralyzing agriculture and causing unemployment, poverty and conflict. About 1.89 million barrels of petroleum were spilled into the Niger Delta between 1976 and 1996 out of a total of 2.4 million barrels spilled in 4,835 incidents (approximately 220,000 cubic metres).
“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life”
-Rachel Carson, American marine biologist and conservationist, author of Silent Spring, advocate of nature and environmental ethics.
Considering the dependence of the inhabitants of the Niger Delta on agricultural resources in the environment, oil spillage devastates the roots of the under structure upon which their livelihood is built. How imaginable is life without agriculturally cultivable land, without potable drinking water? This discomfort has resulted in incessant chaos and insecurity of life and property culminating in slow developmental milestones.
In his award winning book 'Guns, Germs and Steel' Jared Diamond wrote:
“History followed different courses for different people because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves”. (Diamond, p.25)
Since the world became a global village, geographical boundaries became irrelevant on environmental safety issues. Locations that produce Crude oil render service to the entire humanity. If the inhabitants of oil polluted environments are ejected due to pollution, even oil explorers cannot explore in a grossly polluted environment that is full of crisis. Can you imagine life without petroleum? The continuity of existence of the oil producing environments must be ensured.
Restoring peace: Tackling the problems of oil spills
To date, a number of methods have been used to clean oil spills. These include physical, chemical and biological methods (Swannell et al., 1996). The use of oil dispersants is commonest, but poses serious toxic effects on plankton thereby poisoning these marine animals. In addition, the toxins could accumulate in those sea foods consumed by man leading to food poisoning and loss of lives. Also, dispersants have little effect on very viscous, floating oils. Burning the oil in situ is another option which leads to the formation of and possible sinking of extremely viscous and dense residues in addition to safety concerns and dangers associated with the act of burning (e.g. CO2 emissions contributing to ozone layer depletion and global warming). Any sustainable oil spill cleaning strategy must therefore, avoid creating additional problems in the environment in order not to stir greater conflict. The approach must also be prompt, so as to immediately prevent chaos.
The much safer, environment-friendly biological control (biocontrol) methods (Swannell et al., 1996) include, coating surfaces with biological polymers to prevent oil adhesion, using bio surfactants to clean oiled surfaces and addition of materials to encourage microbiological biodegradation of oil (Bioremediation). However, considering the large area to be cleaned, use of biological polymers and bio surfactants are impractical while bioremediation is not a rapid cleanup process, and visual effects may not be seen for a minimum of 15 days after treatment, sometimes longer. The use of plant material as an absorbent is another biological clean-up method. The non-toxic, nonabrasive (Sameshima, 2000) bast (Shaffer and Reed, 2010) and core fibres of Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus) are effective in this.
Introducing Kenaf
An annual plant native to Africa (Dempsey, 1975), kenaf is a low-risk cash crop whose cultivation requires minimal chemical applications and helps to alleviate global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide gases due to its rapid growth rate. Kenaf can absorb CO2 and NO2 3-5 times faster than forests. It can clean the environment efficiently (Lam, 2000).
Why use Kenaf???
“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive” Albert Einstein (father of physics)
The geographical conditions of Nigeria are diverse, covering a wide range of ecological conditions. This requires considerable flexibility in tackling oil spills in the Niger Delta, a region which is considered environmentally very sensitive to oil spills in view of the complexity of its ecological endowment. The use of kenaf in oil spill management will be sustainable, integrate the inhabitants and harmonise the interests of all stakeholders towards attaining long term peace and stability in the region specifically, and the country as a whole.
Project goal
We have a long term view for a stop in the loss of plants, wildlife and fish in the Niger Delta. This will also preserve human health, hitherto threatened by toxins in polluted drinking and fishing waters while stemming poverty and conflict imposed by reduced availability of land for agriculture.
References
Dempsey, J.M. 1975. Fibre Crops. University of Florida Press,
Gainesville, pp. 203–304
Richard P. J. Swannell, Kenneth Lee and Madeleine Mcdonagh, 1996. Field
Evaluations of Marine Oil Spill Bioremediation. Microbiological Reviews, June 1996, p. 342–365
Lam T. B. T., 2000. Structural details of kenaf cell walls and fixation of carbon
dioxide. Proceedings of the 2000 international kenaf symposium, iroshima, Japan, OCT. 13-14, pp.81-90.
Yiguo Liu, 2005. Diallele and Stability Analysis of Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.)
in South Africa. Master of Science Dissertation, University of the Free State Bloemfontein. Pp. 12.
Sameshima, K., 2000. Improvement of kenaf core oil absorption property by
Heat treatment at 200-500°C. Proceedings of 3rd annual America kenaf society conference, Corpus Christi, TX, February, pp. 64-72.
Shaffer D.C. and Reed R.L. 2010. Oil Absorbent Kenaf balls and Kits, and
methods of making and using the same. United States patent 7655149B1. February, 2010.
National oil spill contingency plan (NOSCP), 2000. Prepared by the Sub-
Committee on Oil Spill Response of the Presidential National Action Co-ordinating Committee of the Forum for Cleaning-Up of the Niger-Delta. Pp. 20-38.
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