UN Report: $1 biilion to clean up Niger Delta

Let it not be said that pollution doesn't have a devastating effect - and often very long term too. Reading this piece from Care2 clearly demonstrates how the environment must be protected, let alone the people so sorely effected by degradation and long-term effects from the mishandling of toxic substances such as oil.

"The United Nations has released a report saying that cleaning up the oil-polluted Ogoniland area of Nigeria would cost $1 billion and take over 30 years – the most wide-ranging and costly cleanup of oil pollution clean-up ever. The damage was caused by the operations of oil companies in the area over the past 50 years. The Niger Delta, the world’s third largest wetland, was once rich with biodiversity but is now one of the most oil-polluted areas on earth. The report (and the cost estimate) cover only one small area of the vast Niger Delta; the $1 billion would cover the first five years of cleanup.

Among the findings:

• Public health is seriously threatened in at least ten communities where drinking water is contaminated with high levels of hydrocarbons.

• Some areas that appear unaffected on the surface are in fact severely contaminated underground, and pose a high and immediate risk to human and environmental well being,

• Scientists found an eight centimeter (three inch) layer of oil floating on groundwater (which feeds wells) linked to a spill from six years ago.

The UN Environmental Program report notes, “When an oil spill occurs on land, fires often break out, killing vegetation and creating a crust over the land, making remediation or revegetation difficult. At some sites, a crust of ash and tar has been in place for several decades.” The report makes multiple recommendations for long term remediation of the land, plant and animal life, and human health, including eight emergency measures around preventing further ingestion of polluted water. The report’s recommended the formation of 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.”

Oil drilling ceased in the region in the 1990s as Shell was forced out of the area due to community protest over pollution and poverty. Billions of dollars worth of oil was extracted, yet the local inhabitants are worse off than before the oil operations began. Shell blames much of the current problems on illicit oil operations.