UNEP Ogoniland Oil Assessment Reveals Extent of Environmental Contamination and Threats to Human Health

The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) released a much anticipated report on oil spill damage in Ogoniland and the results are a resounding indictment of Shell’s operations.

Local communities across the Delta have demanded for years that oil companies clean up the damage they’ve caused to the environment, including significant spill damage. Villagers have been demanding an independent audit of the spill damage be undertaken by a neutral third party and that the audit serve as a baseline for any clean up efforts. The first such report was just released.

The UNEP report says that the spill damage in Ogoni might take 30 years to clean up and suggests a $1 billion fund is needed to initiate the clean up.

More from the UN on the UNEP Ogoniland Oil Assessment

Image source: UNEP Nigeria page

Shell’s delayed clean up of the Niger Delta

by Andrew Simmons, 5th October 2011 | from AlJazeeraEnglish

Re-posted from OneWorld UK

Three years after a major oil spill in the Niger Delta, Shell still hasn’t cleaned up its mess.

The company finally admitted legal liability last month, but restitution negotiations could drag on. Shell is blaming delays on the country’s “security situation”.

Amnesty International rejects that claim and has been campaigning on behalf of locals devastated by the spill for proper compensation.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons reports.

New research reveals Shell paid militants who destroyed Nigerian towns

Read the press release from our friends at Platform.

Re-posted from remember saro-wiwa

By Ben Amunwa on October 3, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday 3 October 2011

Shell fuelled human rights abuses in Nigeria by paying huge contracts to armed militants, according to a new report published by Platform and a coalition of NGOs and featured today in The Guardian. [1]

Counting the Cost implicates Shell in cases of serious violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region from 2000 to 2010.[2] The report uncovers how Shell’s routine payments to armed militants exacerbated conflicts, in one case leading to the destruction of Rumuekpe town where it is estimated that at least 60 people were killed.[3]

According to Platform’s report, Shell continues to rely on Nigerian government forces who have perpetrated systematic human rights abuses against local residents, including unlawful killings, torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. The report is available to download here. A shorter, 9-page summary of the report can be found here. Sample tweets and blog posts are also available.

Key findings include:

1. Platform has heard testimony and seen contracts that implicate Shell in regularly assisting armed militants with lucrative payments. In one case in 2010, Shell is alleged to have transferred over $159,000 to a group credibly linked to militia violence. [4]
2. Shell admits that from 2006 onwards, the company paid thousands of dollars every month to armed militants in the town of Rumuekpe, in the full knowledge that the money was used to sustain three years of conflict. [5]
3. A company manager exposes structural problems with Shell’s ‘community development’ programme, claiming that “the money is not going into the rightful hands,” and that poor community engagement caused Shell to shut down a third of its oil production in August 2011 after 12 oil spills in the Adibawa area. [6]

Full press release

image credit: remember saro-wiwa
http://remembersarowiwa.com/new-research-reveals-shell-paid-militants-who-destroyed-nigerian-towns/

Shell accepts liability for two oil spills in Nigeria

By John Vidal

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Reposted from guardian.co.uk Oil giant faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars following class action suit brought on behalf of communities in Bodo, Ogoniland

The impact of an oil spill near Ikarama in the Niger delta. Photograph: Amnesty International UK

Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up. Experts who studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say they could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, when 10m gallons of oil destroyed the remote coastline. Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt in Nigeria. Papers seen by the Guardian show that following a class action suit in London over the past four months, the company has accepted responsibility for the 2008 double rupture of the Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though the community. Ogoniland is a small region of the Niger delta which threw out Shell in 1994 for its pollution but then saw eight of its leaders, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed by the government. The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills, which occurred within months of each other, in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel. No attempt has been made to clean up the oil, which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland. According to the communities in Bodo, in two years the company has only offered £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil. The offers were rejected as “insulting, provocative and beggarly” by the chiefs of Bodo, but later accepted on legal advice. Shell’s acceptance of full liability for the spills follows a class action suit bought on behalf of communities by London law firm Leigh Day and Co, which represented the Ivory Coast community that suffered health damage following the dumping of toxic waste by a ship leased to multinational oil company Trafigura in 2006. Many other impoverished communities in the delta are now expected to seek damages for oil pollution against Shell in the British courts. On average, there are three oil spills a day by Shell and other companies working in the delta. Shell consistently blames the spills on local youths who, they argue, sabotage their network of pipelines. “The news that Shell has accepted liability in Britain will be greeted with joy in the delta. The British courts may now be inundated with legitimate complaints,” said Patrick Naagbartonm, coordinator for the Centre of Environment and Human Rights in Port Harcourt. Full article

Shell has admitted liability but has a long way to go to make amends

Oil spills destroyed my village in Nigeria and decades of environmental and social injustice are still to be addressed

by Patrick Naagbanton, Thursday 4 August 2011 Reposted from guardian.co.uk                       Shell’s admission of liability for two massive oil spills in 2008-09 in my village of Bodo in the Niger Delta is a step forward in the long struggle for corporate accountability. An impoverished village that yesterday lay in ruins has today felt a welcome glimmer of hope and justice. We are happy with the news that Shell could be forced to clean up the environmental devastation it has caused and to pay more than $400m in compensation. But our jubilation is overshadowed by more than five decades of environmental and social injustice yet to be addressed. Bodo village is a fishing community in the minority Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. Shell was forced out of Ogoni in 1993, following mass protests led by writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed on 10 November 1995 alongside eight other campaigners. Shell’s vast network of oil wells, pipelines, flow-stations and gas flares remained in Ogoni and are an everyday reminder of what we have suffered. Many of Shell’s rusty, leaky pipelines date back to the 1970s and have been poorly maintained ever since (see pages 31-36 and 43 of Friends of the Earth Netherlands report). It was equipment failure that caused Shell’s high-pressure Trans-Niger pipeline to rupture on 28 August 2008, gushing an estimated 2,000 barrels of oil per day into Bodo for weeks. The land and water was covered in thick layers of crude. Shell was also responsible for a second spill from the same pipeline on 2 February 2009. Oil spills have effectively destroyed my community. Local farmers and fishers were forced to abandon their traditional ways of life. Bodo Creek is, ecologically speaking, dead. The fish that were not killed by the heavy pollution now reek of petroleum and cannot sustain a village population of 69,000 people. Shell has violated our basic human rights to food, water and livelihood. The compensation Shell offered us – £3,500 plus bags of rice and sugar – was insulting and wholly inadequate. Full article Image: Ogoni Spill-Amensty International photos

UNEP Ogoniland Oil Assessment Reveals Extent of Environmental Contamination and Threats to Human Health

Reposted from United Nations Environment Programme Ogoniland, Nigeria UNEP Ogoniland Oil Report Reveals Extent of Environmental Damage Read full UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland Abuja, 4 August 2011 – The environmental restoration of Ogoniland could prove to be the world’s most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken if contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and important ecosystems such as mangroves are to be brought back to full, productive health. A major new independent scientific assessment, carried out by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), shows that pollution from over 50 years of oil operations in the region has penetrated further and deeper than many may have supposed. The assessment has been unprecedented. Over a 14-month period, the UNEP team examined more than 200 locations, surveyed 122 kilometres of pipeline rights of way, reviewed more than 5,000 medical records and engaged over 23,000 people at local community meetings. Detailed soil and groundwater contamination investigations were conducted at 69 sites, which ranged in size from 1,300 square metres (Barabeedom-K.dere, Gokana local government area (LGA) to 79 hectares (Ajeokpori-Akpajo, Eleme LGA). Altogether more than 4,000 samples were analyzed, including water taken from 142 groundwater monitoring wells drilled specifically for the study and soil extracted from 780 boreholes… …Next Steps Recommendations Through a combination of approaches, individual contaminated land areas in Ogoniland can be cleaned up within five years, while the restoration of heavily-impacted mangrove stands and swamplands will take up to 30 years. However, according to the report, all sources of ongoing contamination must be brought to an end before the clean-up of the creeks, sediments and mangroves can begin. The report recommends establishing three new institutions in Nigeria to support a comprehensive environmental restoration exercise. A proposed Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority would oversee implementation of the study’s recommendations and should be set up during a Transition Phase which UNEP suggests should begin as soon as possible. The Authority’s activities should be funded by an Environmental Restoration Fund for Ogoniland, to be set up with an initial capital injection of US$1 billion contributed by the oil industry and the government, to cover the first five years of the clean-up project. A recommended Integrated Contaminated Soil Management Centre, to be built in Ogoniland and supported by potentially hundreds of mini treatment centres, would treat contaminated soil and provide hundreds of job opportunities. The report also recommends creating a Centre of Excellence in Environmental Restoration in Ogoniland to promote learning and benefit other communities impacted by oil contamination in the Niger Delta and elsewhere in the world. Reforms of environmental government regulation, monitoring and enforcement, and improved practices by the oil industry are also recommended in the report. Full article image: UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland Public meetings staged throughout Ogoniland during each phase of the study helped to build understanding of UNEP’s project and to foster community participation,

Amnesty International, Responding to UNEP Report on Disastrous Oil Pollution in Nigeria, Demands Accountability from Shell

Amnesty International Press Release
For Immediate Release
Thursday, August 4, 2011

Amnesty International, Responding to United Nations Report on Disastrous Oil Pollution in Nigeria, Demands Accountability from Shell Oil Company

Reposted from Amnesty International

Urges Institutional Investors to Urge Shell To “Clean Up Its Act” in Niger Delta

Contact: Suzanne Trimel, 212-633-4150, strimel@aiusa.org

(New York) – Amnesty International said today that Shell oil company has had a disastrous impact on the human rights of people living in the Niger Delta and must be held to account. The organization was responding to a United Nations report – the first of its kind in Nigeria — on the severe and widespread effects of oil pollution in Ogoniland in the Delta region.

The report from the United Nations Environment Program is based on two years of in-depth scientific research. It found that oil contamination is widespread and severe, and that people in the Niger Delta have been exposed for decades.

“This report proves Shell has had a terrible impact in Nigeria, but has got away with denying it for decades, falsely claiming they work to best international standards,” said Amnesty International Global Issues Director, Audrey Gaughran, who has researched the human rights impacts of pollution in the Delta and is the author of a groundbreaking 2009 report, “Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta.”

The U.N. report, which was conducted at the request of the Nigerian government and paid for by Shell, provides irrefutable evidence of the devastating impact of oil pollution on people’s lives in the Delta – one of Africa’s most bio-diverse regions. It examines the damage to agriculture and fisheries, which has destroyed livelihoods and food sources. One of the most serious facts to come to light is the scale of contamination of drinking water, which has exposed communities to serious health risks. In one case water was found to contain a known carcinogen at levels 900 times above World Health Organization guidelines. The U.N. Environment Program has recommended emergency measures to alert communities to the danger.

“This report should also be a wake-up call to institutional investors. In the past they’ve allowed Shell’s public relations machine to pull the wool over their eyes, but they will now want to see the company cleaning up its act in the Niger Delta – that means putting real pressure on Shell to avoid spillages, compensate those already affected and disclose more accurate information on their impacts,” said Gaughran.

The report reveals Shell’s systemic failure to address oil spills going back many years and describes how sites that Shell claimed were cleaned up were found by UNEP experts to be still polluted.

Full press release

Four Niger Delta communities stage peaceful protest against Shell

Four Communities: Imiringi, Elebele, Otuasega and Oruma stage peaceful protest against Shell, Friday, 08 July 2011 Reposted from Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria) INTRODUCTION: Four communities where Shell Petroleum Development Company [SPDC] operates in recently issued a 14 days ultimatum to the company, demanding for implementation of agreement reached with the communities in 1999. The communities include: Oruma, Otuasega, Elebele and Imiringi; all Ogbia speaking Ijaw communities in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, few kilometres to President Goodluck Jonathan’s community, Otueke. Following the ultimatum to Shell, leaders of the community had appeared before the Joint Military Task Force [JTF] at the expiration of the time with a view to settle the matter amicably. Unfortunately, Shell could not convince the aggrieved communities that are demanding that the company honour the agreement it reached with them in 1999, and they decided to stage a peaceful protest to the heavily guarded Shell facility, the Kolo Creek Logistic Base. ERA’s field monitor witnessed the protest that took place on the 7th of July 2011 and some of the protesters spoke with him. TESTIMONIES: We are here for a peaceful protest but if the JTF handles this matter in a violent way we shall only retreat and return in full force. Then it will be too bad for Shell because Shell has cheated us for too long. The Kolo Creek communities have been known to be very peaceful but if the soldiers and Shell take undue advantage of our peaceful disposition today to intimidate us, we shall not take it. If we hear any gun shot or if any of our members is injured here today by the soldiers, the rest of the state and the country will hear our action. All we are demanding for is that Shell should respect the agreement it reached long ago with our people; these four communities. They agreed to extend electricity to our communities but they are not doing so; while benefiting heavily from our oil wells. This is not a fresh demand, it is an agreement reached with us that we are trying to enforce. — Amakiri Joseph, Vice-Chairman of the Community Development Committee [CDC] of Oruma Full article

Shell Nigeria’s Managing Director discusses oil spills on CNN:

Environmental Lawsuit Against Shell in the Netherlands for Niger Delta Pollution

On December 30, 2009 a civil court judge in the Hague ruled that Royal Dutch Shell can be sued in the Netherlands—its corporate headquarters—for pollution it caused in Nigeria.

Four Nigerian villagers and Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) brought the claim, forcing Shell to face up to charges of environmental and social damage it has caused in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Estimated damage from pipeline spills and gas flaring caused by the oil industry as a whole amounts to up to $20 billion, according to a variety of independent organizations. Royal Dutch Shell is the largest oil company operating in Nigeria. The case charges Shell with environmental degradation arising from its oil operations in the village of Oruma, where a high-pressure wellhead spewing oil and gas ran uncontained for 12 days, polluting land and drinking water in nearby communities, with “clean-up”—comprised of dumping toxic waste into pits and burning them—beginning four months later. Shell also faces claims for damage in Goi, where in 2005, Shell’s Trans-Niger pipeline caught fire and destroyed farmland and homes and polluted fisheries, with the mess remaining for 33 months, as well as for an enforcement action of a court order against Shell to stop the illegal practice of gas flaring, which the federal high court of Nigeria declared a violation of human rights in 2005. The first substantive hearing, which pertains to the Oruma oil spill, is slated to begin in the Hague Civil Court tentatively in spring 2010. Royal Dutch Shell continues to deny responsibility for, and contest jurisdiction abroad over, its actions in Nigeria. Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/30/shell-oruma-alleged-pollution-claim http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8434736.stm

Wiwa vs. Royal Dutch Shell

Case Settled on June 8, 2009 for $15.5 Million to be paid out to 10 plaintiffs and cover their legal costs.  $5 million will be used to create the Kiisi Trust to benefit the Ogoni people

Read Press Release and statements from the plaintiffs Attorney’s Read Press Release from Shell Guilty Campaign The Campaign to End Gas Flaring Continues – Take Action Now On November 10, 1995 internationally recognized peace activist Ken Saro Wiwa along with 8 of his colleagues from Ogoniland – a small ethnic community in the Niger Delta – were hanged by a military tribunal after they were convicted on trumped up charges. Wiwa was fighting for the Ogoni peoples’ rights regarding the environmental and economic destruction of their land due to Shell’s oil extraction in the region. Watch this video that detailed the case against Shell. Wiwa v Shell was settled on June 8, 2009 for the sum of $15.5 million.  This is considered a victory for the plaintiffs, the Ogoni people and those working to hold the extractive industry accountable for their role in human rights abuses throughout the world.

Go to ShellGuilty.com to learn about Shell’s atrocities and climate crimes

Go to WiwavShell.org for more information on the cases.

Learn about Shell’s Gas Flaring and Take Action to stop it

For a good summary of the situation surrounding Ken Saro Wiwa’s  death click here. This account was written in 1997 by staff from Project Underground, a group that worked on holding the extractive industry accountable in the 1990′s and early 2000′s and who traveled to Nigeria. Download the full report written by Project Underground staff View a fact sheet about the case. View a fact sheet about Shell’s environmental abuses in the Delta For additional resources on Ken Saro Wiwa and the attention his death received worldwide go to: Green Peace Archives Remember Ken Saro Wiwa

Shell

Royal Dutch Shell, the 3rd largest company in the world, is a Dutch company with their headquarters in London. Last year Shell earned record profits of over $31 billion. Shell was the first oil company to extract oil from the Niger Delta in 1956 and operates in Nigeria under the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) – the largest private sector oil and gas company in the country. Shell extracts between 700,000 and 1 million barrels of oil per day from Nigeria depending on levels of instability in the region equating to nearly half of Nigeria’s daily oil extraction. Shell boasted their ‘success’ in Nigeria in a briefing note issued in 2008 to ‘celebrate’ 50 years of extracting oil in Nigeria. According to the briefing, SPDC’s operations in the Niger Delta are spread over some 30,000 square kilometers and include a network of over 6,000 kilometers of flowlines and pipelines, 90 oil fields, 1,000 producing wells, 73 flowstations, eight gas plants and two major oil export terminals at Bonny and Forcados. What they do notsay is that most of the 6,000 kilometers of pipeline snake through local communities throughout the Delta above ground, and are old, rusted and constantly break, leaking oil into drinking water and the creeks where villagers fish, wash their clothes and fetch water for cooking. Shell does not reveal that those communities were never asked if the company could operate on its land nor were they compensated. And throughout the region Shell is burning gas flares some of which have burned 24 hours a day, seven days a week for over 40 years causing major respiratory problems, cancer and acid rain that has corroded roofs of houses and destroyed crops.

Read The Other Shell Report for more information on the worldwide activities the company does not report