ENVIRONMENT : TOXIC WASTE DUMP SITE IN RIVERS STATE COMMUNITY . . . ERA/FoEN.



By Mike ALADENIKA. 





The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN)  said, it has uncovered a toxic waste dump site  in Kdere, Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State.

The group, in a press statement signed by its Programme Director, Barrister Mike Karikpo, said "a team of our Environmental Field Monitors visited Lot 13 and Lot 14 on September 28, 2021 and unearthed  toxic waste dump site in Kdere community."

According to the statement, some workers of Centennial Development and Investment Limited, the contractor assigned to cleanup and remediate Lot 13, phase 1 batch 1 of the HYPREP delineated cleanup sites had also complained of a powerful stench oozing from the Lot.

“ERA/FoENfield monitors noticed coloured creamy substances in the soil within the excavated pit. An environmental scientist in the team disclosed that the stench and the colour of the groundwater in the pit are telltale signs that the site could be a toxic waste dump site.

“The excavated area has been cordoned off but despite the possible health and safety implications of working in such deleterious environment as work was still ongoing at the different sections of the site and many of the workers did not have the benefit of protective face masks or other protective gear needed for such harmful site work.

“No one knows when the toxic substance excavated by this cleanup contractor was buried there but fingers are pointing inexorably to shell as the architect of the heinous crime.

“We recall that in 2018, similar substances with heavily offensive odours were discovered at oil well No. 39 in Kdere community, and subsequent laboratory analysis confirmed that the substances were toxic wastes buried there by Shell.

“Oil well 39 where the toxic substances were removed in 2018 by Shell was neither cleaned up and compensation paid to persons from the community who suffered any effects on their crop farming, nor their health status medically assessed.

“ERA field monitors and some members of the community also recalled another incident of massive oil spill in Lot 13 and Lot 14 that occurred in 2008, with crude oil shooting up into the sky and across the nearby tarred road. Community and individual farmlands and crops were destroyed in the spill and neither relief materials nor compensation paid. 

Shell’s contractor appointed to cleanup and remediated this area was headed by Dr. Marvin Dekil who was later appointed as the coordinator of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) in 2017.
“Shell’s cleanup and remediation team lead at the time this contract was awarded to Dr. Marvin Dekil’s firm in 2008 was Prof. Phillip Shekwelo. Not surprisingly, Prof Philip Shekwelo is the current acting coordinator of HYPREP on secondment by Shell. 

The cleanup was supposedly undertaken by Dr Marvin Dekil’s firm and supervised by Prof. Phillip Shekwolo and his team at Shell. The cleanup was supposedly completed and certified by Shell and National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) as well as the Department of Petroleum Resources.”

Lamenting the situation, the Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN, Dr Godwin Uyi Ojo condemned Shell’s frequent acts of secret cocktails of toxic chemicals with repugnant smell dumped in Ogoni. 

Dr. Uyi Ojo  said "this is a major source of soil contamination and water pollution with serious health hazards, and community folks die off in instalments owing to no fault of theirs but the greed and plunder of an oil company that will not play to the rules but has perfected the art of repeatedly violating the people of Ogoniland and their environment.
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