Not comfortable with the Minister’s assurance about oil spills

Mar 09, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Minister Trotman recently assured the citizens of Guyana that this country is prepared for an oil spill. If ‘prepared’ means being able to stop long term or irreversible damage to marine waters and biodiversity from any oil spill, then we are the only country in the world in that happy position. If the Minister’s statement means something less, then Guyanese citizens should be seriously concerned.
Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd (EEPGL) intend to drill about 5,000 metres (more than 3 miles) down into the sea-bed. The sea-bed itself is 1800 metres (over a mile) deep. Is the Minister aware of the risks posed by one single deep water well – let alone the 17 wells EEPGL intends to build?
In 2010 the deep water well Macondo blew out, killing 11 people. If Minister Trotman has read the report “Deep Water the Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling” (commissioned by President Obama) he could not possibly conclude that Guyana is prepared for an oil spill.
Macondo dumped about 4,900,000barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The impact on marine wildlife was devastating and even harmed Guyana’s marine turtles thousands of miles away. If the rich and technologically advanced USA could not protect its own marine environment, why does Minister Trotman think that our Civil Defence Commission and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency will do better? Minister Trotman has said that Exxon would be obligated to deal with the spill. It took BP 152 days to ‘kill’ the Macondo well. Is Exxon going to do any better?
Exxon’s record does not bear scrutiny. Exxon has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars in the USA for pollution, spills and leaks. The Exxon Valdez spilled 11,000,000 gallons of oil in the pristine Alaskan environment. The oil covered 11,000 square miles of ocean and is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of birds and animals including at least 22 orcas, 300 harbour seals, 2,800 sea otters, 250,000 sea birds, and unknown numbers of salmon and herring. No amount of money can bring them back from the dead. Exxon has apparently spilled more than 1,000,000 gallons of oil into the Niger Delta. Last month the UK Guardian reported that Exxon is being investigated for an oil spill in the Bass Strait, Australia.
The Environmental Protection Act 1996 requires an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for every ‘project’ which could have a significant effect on the environment. Rather than carry out the separate EIAs required by law EEPGL has bundled together in one environmental impact assessment, 17 deep water wells, off-shore facilities, on-shore facilities, flaring, use of chemicals, marine discharges, transportation of oil through Guyana’s marine environment, decommissioning etc. EEPGL’s Environmental Impact Assessment Statement, a glossy 485 pages now open for public comment, is hopelessly inadequate.
Should we trust Exxon? Exxon has been under investigation in the United States for misleading the public, has been investigated by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and has been fined for anti-competitive behaviour in the USA. In October 2016 the High Court in Chad imposed a fine of US$74 billion on Exxon for underpaying royalties. All of this makes transparency critical for the Guyanese people and Minister Trotman should immediately release the current contract.
President Granger has made public commitments to a green economy and has even mentioned ‘replenishment’ of biodiversity, a visionary change from the current dreary dogma of ‘sustainability’ in an impoverished natural world. Given Exxon’s estimate of a recoverable resource of 800,000,000 to 1,400,000,000 barrels of oil, there is more than enough money to protect and replenish our national patrimony. Indeed we are required to do so by Article 36 of the Constitution which says that, “The wellbeing for the nation depends upon preserving clean air, fertile soils, pure water and the rich diversity of plants, animals and ecosystems.”
So, Exxon must be made to carry out this oil venture in compliance with the law, using the best available technology, and with systems designed to protect, not damage, the environment. The oil money should be invested in a properly constituted sovereign wealth trust fund and divided on the one hand between replenishment and protection of our national patrimony and on the other hand guaranteed income for every born Guyanese. Otherwise, why are we doing this?
Melinda Janki