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).

    In some Japanese cities, kenaf was planted by government to improve the air quality. Although Kenaf is not new to Nigeria, it has been grossly underutilized due to lack of public awareness and niche markets on use of kenaf.

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.