Source: UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

7 February 2008
Posted to the web 7 February 2008

URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200802070739.html 

Kedere

A few days after villagers in Kedere in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region noticed oil seeping from the pipe that runs beside the village, a few boys from the village went out with shovels, dug pits a few feet deep, scooped the oil into the ground and burned it, finally covering it with sand.

"During the dry season, it looks nice," Anyakwee Nsirimovu, director of the Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Port Harcourt, told IRIN, describing the simple process which he said is a common spill clean-up tactic in the region.

The environmental damage caused by such poor clean-up methods could be disastrous, Emmanuel Emmanuel, an environmental scientist in Port Harcourt, said. "Oil does not burn at 800 degrees Celsius," he explained, "so when you burn it, you just flare off the volatiles and gas. The dense crude remains... One drop of rain and you see the black spots," he said.

Across Kedere and similar villages in the region, evidence of the damage is readily apparent in the oil sheen on the soil and water.

"The land is devastated. The drinking water and streams are polluted. As it rains, we use the rain water but cannot drink it, because even that is full of crude oil," youth leader Amstel Monday Ebarakpor told IRIN.

"At every groundwater intrusion, you see seepage. Sometimes you can see oil sheen on drinking water," he told IRIN. "Crude will be there for the next 50 years."

On 25 January the chairman of the government's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, Bamidele Ajakaiye, told Nigeria's Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology that there are 1,150 abandoned oil spill sites in the Niger Delta region. Many, communities say, are cleaned like the one in Kedere - if at all.

Oil companies and communities disagree on why there are so many spills in the Niger Delta.

A joint investigation team from the federal, state, and local governments, as well as the community and oil companies, is supposed to decide whether a spill is caused by decaying facilities, human error, or vandalism. When third party interference is the case, oil companies are not required to compensate the community for damaged land.

Shell and Eni, the two companies with the most on-the-ground coverage attribute most of the spills to "bunkering" - the highly dangerous and illegal practice of people breaking into pipes to tap some of the oil which they can sell on the black market.

Activists say those figures are too high, and that aging oil facilities are more to blame. "The pipelines are as old as oil operations," environmental scientist Emmanuel said.

"[The companies] have only recently started doing replacements so the pipes are corroded. Many are on the surface and under pressure 24 hours a day carrying crude oil."

Irresponsible local contractors?

Regardless of the cause, companies are required to notify the Nigerian government within 24 hours, and oil spills are to be cleaned up immediately, an obligation oil companies say is often impossible.

"As in previous years, some communities denied [us] access to spill sites, restricting our ability to respond and clean up spills in good time," Shell said in its 2006 annual report.

You cannot deal with [oil spills] using illiterate people with nothing in their heads about pollution and [no knowledge of[ how to deal with an issue that is deeply scientific

Shell Media Relations Officer Caroline Wittgen explained that when clean-up does take place, Nigerian law requires that clean-up jobs be awarded to local contractors. "Contracts are awarded to Nigerian contractors provided they possess the technical capability to handle the jobs," she told IRIN.

Bari-Karap Moi, spokesman for the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, said local contractors often hire unqualified and ill-equipped youth to do the work. "You cannot deal with [oil spills] using illiterate people with nothing in their heads about pollution and [no knowledge of] how to deal with an issue that is deeply scientific," he told IRIN.

Most spills in Kedere are cleaned up by the basic practice of scooping oil into pits, burning it, and sealing the holes, he said. Community leaders from villages around Port Harcourt tell the same story.

Idris Musa, deputy director of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, said the ideal method to clean on-land spills is by using pits to contain the spill and vacuum trucks to later clean out the crude. "Burning is not encouraged," he told IRIN.

"Cleaning of an oil spill is not a low-tech thing. The community does not have the materials."

URL: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76661 

HEBRON, WEST BANK, 10 February 2008 (IRIN) - A recent cold snap with sub-zero temperatures has caused farmers in the West Bank to incur losses of nearly US$14.5 million, according to initial estimates by the Palestinian ministry of agriculture (MoA) set out in a 6 February joint "fact sheet" with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The winter cash crop is the most profitable and "[as] a direct result of the frost, thousands of farmers have lost their main source of income for the next [few] months," the "fact sheet", which was emailed to IRIN, said.

Between 70 and 100 percent of crops planted in the open - mainly zucchinis, aubergines, beans, tomatoes, peppers and fruit trees - have either been lost or damaged.

A Palestinian Authority (PA) document obtained by IRIN detailed the damage in the northern part of Hebron District during seven days of frost and sub-zero temperatures in January, and said about $1.5 million worth of damage had been incurred mainly in open fields, while beehive growers had suffered losses estimated at about $100,000.

The FAO and MoA have appealed for urgent funding to help affected farmers replant in the next inter-cropping season, at the end of February, noting that "most farmers will be unable to plant new crops without external assistance".

The PA has reportedly allocated nearly seven million dollars as cash compensation for the farmers, but IRIN was unable to confirm this or when the farmers might be paid.

"About every 7-10 years a major frost hits the region," an Israeli official with the national meteorological service (who preferred anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the press), told IRIN. "By frost we mean a relatively prolonged period of relatively exceptionally cold weather that is spread out over a large area," he explained.

In the crisis-plagued Gaza Strip, where farmers were already going bankrupt due to the ban on exports, losses caused by the prolonged frost were estimated at over $4.5 million.

Distraught bee-keeper

"They are all dead," said Amin al-Bayed, holding up a handful of lifeless honey-makers. He lost his bees in all 14 of his beehives during the frost. "We had very low temperatures at night, about seven below zero, and it went on for a week. The bees couldn't handle it," he said as his children played with the now empty hives.

He usually managed to make about a third of his overall income by selling hives and honey.

"I had a goal to reach 100 hives, I wanted to build it up," Amin, a registered Palestinian refugee, told IRIN. He had hoped to start a business marketing honey products as natural remedies.

"Now, I have to start all over [again], but I don't know where I will get the money," he said from his home in the Fawwar refugee camp.

Amin said that now, more than in the past, he was in need of assistance from UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, but that he had not received food parcels in over six months.

"Since the events in Nahr al-Bared [troubled refugee camp in northern Lebanon] and the emergency in Gaza we get less aid," Amin said, adding that he works three months a year with UNWRA's job creation programme.

Frost adds to existing woes

For farmer Hassan Jaber, who grows radishes and cauliflowers in Beqaa village near Hebron, years of troubles with the nearby Israeli settlement have already cost him heavily. The recent cold weather had added to his financial woes.

"We had 30 dunams [30,000 square metres] of our agricultural land confiscated by the [nearby] settlement of Harsina in the late 1990s," he said, pointing towards the fence around the settlement which encroaches on his house.

"Farming is my only source of income. Most people in this area are like this," he told IRIN. He and his wife have 11 children and help support other members of the extended family.

"I lost 15,000-20,000 shekels [$4,000-5,500] because of the frost," he said.

Hassan can borrow money in order to replant next season but he was concerned about entering into a cycle of debt, especially as raw material costs were rising while his produce continued to fetch the same price.

"I can't export to Israel any more because of their restrictions. We can't export to Gaza, because of the closure there. I can't export to Jordan because I don't have [an Israeli-issued] permit," he said, adding that he could only sell within the West Bank, but even there some markets were hard to reach due to checkpoints.