Whistleblowers: toxic water from oil companies in South
JUBA, Sudan, April 11, (Gurtong) – A group of researchers set up by the Special Committee on Land, Environment and Natural Resources of the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly are writing a whistle-blowing report on the environmental impact of oil companies working in Upper Nile and Unity State the investigating body’s head said on Wednesday.
The researchers are especially worried about the ways in which oil companies are dealing with potentially highly toxic water which is brought to the surface as a by-product of oil production.
The report currently in draft follows a Feb-March investigatory trip by the group to oil producing areas of Upper Nile where the consortium Petrodar – including the Sudanese-owned Sudapet - is operating and Unity State where Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company consortium is active.
Aleisio Maluil who headed up the trip, emphasized the scale of operations in these areas. He was informed by officials in Upper Nile that there are 100 wells operating in the Paloch area and another 41 in Adar. In Unity State the figures are higher.
“They told us that the number of wells operating is 323 in the Heglig area (north of Bentiu) under the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company,” said Maluil.
“We have fears, and they are based on something,” said Maluil who said that the River Nile was potentially endangered by the activities of the oil companies, “we are ringing an alarm to environmentalists everywhere; the Nile is not Sudan’s alone”.
Maluil said he saw storage ponds for the water – which he says can be up to 80 per cent of the fluid that emerges from a well - at central processing facilities in both states.
“But we are now operating in dry years, if floods come, then the whole of the Nile is at risk, the area is too flat,” said Maluil “the ponds are fenced and banked but the banks are too low”.
“They are thinking they will have to find a way to re-inject the water back into the wells but it will take time,” said Maluil about the operations in Upper Nile. He added that he was provided with no evidence that any means for doing this were being put in place.
“The ponds are just dug in the ground, the water could even sink into the water supply,” said Maluil.
The investigating also visited the Heglig central processing facility where the oil company there is treating through ‘biomediation’ where plants in and around the ponds are used in a series of four pools to treat the water.
“We have suspicions,” said Maluil, who has collected water samples but has not yet found a suitable laboratory to test them after Khartoum University scientists said they could not do it.
The body of researchers said that the infamous problem of displacement of people from land in the South to make way for wells is not over yet.
“What we have seen in Upper Nile are wells where local people are still sitting now, the company wants to move them but they are saying their rights are not being given,” said Maluil.
Maluil is hoping that his report will lead to the legislative assembly and the government of South Sudan to send new health and environment experts back into the field with a wider mandate than his and lead to changes in how oil exploration and drilling is conducted.
“There are no monitoring groups to look at the effects of oil exploration and production,” said Maluil, “there is a lack of accountability and transparency”.
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- Unpaid Debt A comprehensive overview of the role of the Lundin Consortium in the oil war. ECOS calls upon the Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian governments to investigate whether, as a matter of international law, Lundin, OMV and Petronas 'were complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by others during the period 1997-2003.’ In response, the Swedish Public Prosecutor for International crimes opened a criminal investigation into ‘links between Sweden and the reported crimes’.
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