Communities want oil damage assessment

Residents of the oil town of Warri, in Nigeria’s Delta State, have called for a damage assessment investigation into an oil spill in April at Chevron Corp’s installations in their area, ‘The Vanguard’, a local newspaper, reported on Friday.

The Lagos daily reported residents of the north and southwest of the city as saying that damage had been done to bodies of water and infrastructure such as canals and dams. In a letter to Chevron, the area’s local government councils said the federal and state ministries of the environment, residents and Chevron should form the investigating team, the daily reported.

In a similar development, people living in Umuakuni, Rivers State, say they oppose a proposed plan by the Shell Petroleum Development Company to build a waste-recycling facility in the area, ‘The Guardian’ reported on Friday.

The spokesman for the communities, Kosarim Nwuke, said they did not want a repeat of the damage caused when Shell dumped industrial waste in the Otamiri River, in the 1980s, destroying aquatic life and depriving communities of their main livelihood.
“The adverse environmental impact will be enormous because it will affect the fragile eco-system of the Niger-Delta region,” Nwuke said.

Relations between foreign oil companies and communities of the oil-producing Niger-Delta region have deteriorated over the past few years. The communities have been denouncing exploitation and environmental degradation, and demanding more development projects.