The Project Coordinator of Hydrocarbon Pollution
Restoration Project (HYPREP), Marvin Dekil, has explained why Ogoni cleanup was missing in the 2017 budget.
Dekil, who spoke in Port Harcourt yesterday, said the policy of Polluter Pay Principle made it impossible for the National Assembly to include it.
He said HYPREP and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) had drawn up a road map for the holistic remediation of the environment, which is expected to gulp $200 million this year.
He explained that $200 million would be required for the project this year, while the remaining $800 million for the next four years, would be provided by the international oil companies, in partnership with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
He said the Federal Government’s commitment to the implementation of the UNEP report has already been received from a four-man committee that was raised to identity and evaluate existing water facilities in Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme local council areas.
“The
report was done in line with the recommendation of UNEP, which stated
that before any cleanup of the oil impacted environment could be done,
potable water must be provided for the people”, he noted.
Dekil
said HYPREP has also opened up different sites, at no cost, for the
demonstration of remediation opportunities by companies who volunteered
to test them technologies.He said HYPREP has collected new samples (soil, water surface and underground) at various demonstration sites at Kwawa, K-Dere, Korokoro and Ogale communities.
“The report is valid, we are doing an update of the baseline that was obtained at that time. A site that was accessed in 2011, this is 2017, if we wanted to remediate that site today, we will do scooping. It is an exercise that would allow us to capture the contamination profile as at now. And that is what we will use to design the remediation plan”, he said.
Dekil said HYPREP has opened up different sites for the demonstration of remediation technologies by companies who volunteered to test their technologiesThe Hydrocarbon Pollution and Remediation Project, HYPREP, yesterday, disclosed that it has engaged illegal oil refiners in Ogoni communities of Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme Local Government Areas of Rivers State in the clean-up process.
Project Coordinator, HYPREP, Dr. Marvin Dekil, made the disclosure in Port Harcourt, while giving an account of the activities of the team within 100 days in office.
Dekil noted that artisanal refiners in the area have been engaged in the clean up so that they will not continue to impact on the area while the cleanup is going on.
He
noted that when HYPREP met the illegal refiners that they (illegal
refiners) promised to discontinue their activities that are harmful to
the environment.
He said that several of the youths, who illegally
refined oil have been engaged and retrained by the body to ensure that
they were useful in the clean-up process.“We met with the leadership of Ogoni ex-artisanal refiners. We had enlightened them about the project and they promised not to be involved in such activities again having received our message that the trade is harmful to their heath, the society and the environment. We gave them the task of the identifying the skill they would want us to train them on as an alternative source of livelihood for them.”
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