Group tasks SPDC on thorough cleanup exercise

THE Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has returned to an oil spill site in Edagberi/Betterland community in Ahoada-West Local Government Area of Rivers State, about two years after abandoning the recovery of spilled crude oil in the impacted environment.

However, a member of the Environmental Right Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Mr Morris Allagoa, picked holes in the shoddy job done by SPDC, and called on their management to revisit oil spillage site and carry out a thorough clean of the spill, so that the land would regain nutrient and become arable for the community members to return to their natural occupation of farming, fishing and canoe-carving.

The incident which occurred in July 2015 from Shell’s Adibawa Well 8 facility was said to have devastated the ecosystem and destroyed flora and fauna.

About six months after the oil spill happened, the impacted area went up in flames on 20 January 2016 soon after Shell officials visited the site and left.

The people of the community had accused Shell of setting the impacted area ablaze, an allegation the company denied.

A contracting firm that was awarded the job to carry out clean up of the impacted swampy environment was said to have abandoned work complaining of water flooding.

Ambrose Kofi Osuolo, the secretary of Edagberi/Betterland Community Development Committee (CDC) confirmed to our correspondent on Tuesday that Shell returned to the site on 15 April 2017.

“After burning the impacted site we were still expected them (Shell) to come and continue work on the site but we didn’t see anything like that until very recently, they returned to site on 5 April 2017. They worked for only two weeks with excavator.

“They worked for only two weeks and when rain started falling, the contractor rushed out from site with his equipment telling his workers he has finished his job”, he said.

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) observed that “mere turning of top soil upside down had not removed the crude oil which had gone into the soil”.

He urged them to quit crashing the surface and stop the gimmicks, because what was at stake was the source of livelihood of the affected communities, health and economic challenges inclusive.

“The volume of crude oil gushing from the Wellhead was high and, it took Shell about four days to stop the spill”, Alagoa Morris, head of ERA/FoEN’s office in Bayelsa State, said after a field visit to the site.

He called on regulatory agencies like the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) and the Rivers State Ministry of Environment to follow up with inspection and sample testing to ascertain the state of the environment and recommend appropriate measures accordingly.