Four oil spill sites in Nigeria identified by the UN, which Shell has claimed to have had cleaned up by contractors since 2011, are still polluted, says a report by Amnesty.
One of these sites, the Bomu manifold close to the village of Kegbara Dere in Ogoniland, is Nigeria’s oil central: five major northbound Shell pipelines join four southbound ones which together carry 150,000 barrels of oil a day to the huge oil export terminal at Bonny 50 miles away. The junction is considered so important to the economy of Nigeria and Shell that it is surrounded by a high fence and guarded day and night by the military.
But the ageing 50-year-old pipes and rusty pumps have burst and spilt large quantities of oil at least seven times since 1990, and in 2009 a fire broke out lasting 36 hours, leading to another major spill. When UN environment programme (Unep) inspectors visited the site in 2010, they found high levels of contamination all around Bomu, pollution 5m deep in places and oil spreading into nearby cassava fields, and water supplies.
Back in 2010, Unep inspectors said, “Nothing appears to have been done about the pollution,” and urged an immediate decontamination of the Bomu manifold along with 60 other heavily polluted sites in Ogoniland, all of which, they said, had been left untouched or only cursorily cleaned up by Shell and other oil companies since the 1970s.
Earlier this year Amnesty International revisited the Bomu manifold three times and found the site still massively contaminated, despite claims from Shell and the Nigerian government’s watchdog pollution body that it had been cleaned up satisfactorily in 2012.
“Water containing oil … flows along the path of the Shell pipelines. At places there are pools of oil. Some soil is black and hard. The three fish ponds, owned by a local family, are covered in a thick oily sheen, and show no signs of life. The spills … have contaminated fields and a neighbouring forest and have spread down into the Barabeedom swamp,” says Amnesty, working with the Port Harcourt-based Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD).
The joint report is published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the execution of nine Ogoni leaders, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. Amnesty alleges that in some cases, contractors employed by Shell admit simply to burying the pollution.
“This is just a cover up. If you just dig down a few metres you find oil. We just excavated, then shifted the soil away, then covered it all up again,” one contractor employed by Shell told Amnesty.
The report concerns sites at Bomu Manifold, Boobanabe, Barabeedom swamp and Okuluebu. It says: “Claims by Shell that it has cleaned up heavily polluted areas of the Niger delta are blatantly false. The only plausible explanations for why the four sites could still be polluted, four years after Unep found high levels of contamination at each of them, are that no remediation was carried out, or remediation was carried out but was ineffective, or that other spills have occurred since then.
“In two of the four cases explanation one is ruled out by Shell itself. The company has publicly stated that the sites were cleaned up. In those two locations, explanation three [that there was subsequent re-contamination from spills after 2011] is also not possible.
“All four sites remain visibly contaminated, even though Shell says it has cleaned them. The investigation demonstrates this is due to inadequate clean-up, and not new oil spills,” says the report.
Amnesty says its investigators sought meetings with and wrote to both Shell and the government’s oil spill regulator, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (Nosdra), seeking an explanation.
“Shell said they were not available for meetings. A subsequent letter from the company suggested researchers look at information on Shell’s website. But this provided little information on clean-up.
“Nosdra is under-resourced and continues to certify areas as clean that are visibly polluted with crude oil,” says Amnesty. “The government of Nigeria is failing to fulfil its duty to protect the human rights of people living in the Niger delta. It must substantially strengthen the capacity of Nosdra to regulate Shell and the activities of Shell’s contractors,” it says.
“By inadequately cleaning up the pollution from its pipelines and wells, Shell is leaving thousands of women, men and children exposed to contaminated land, water and air, in some cases for years or even decades,” says Amnesty researcher Mark Dummett.
“Shell says theft is to blame for most oil spills on the Delta, but even if that were true it would not excuse the company’s historic failure to clean up oil pollution. Shell’s blame game can no longer deflect attention from its broken promises and neglected infrastructure,” says Dummett.
Shell operates around 50 oil fields and 5,000km of pipelines in the Niger delta. According to the oil giant’s own figures, there have been 1,693 oil spills leading to more than 350,000 barrels of crude oil being lost since 2007.
Shell has said it intends to clean up all the spills identified in the 2011 Unep report, but argues this could take some years.
In a statement to the Guardian, Shell said: “Without access to the full report it is difficult to verify and respond to the detailed claims.
“Implementation of the Unep report is part of a wider programme of remediation, pipeline protection, community engagement and social investment activities being undertaken by the SPDC JV with its government, community and civil society partners in Ogoniland.
Unep estimated in 2011 that it could take up to 30 years and $6bn to clean up the region. The organisation made detailed recommendations to Shell and the Nigerian government.