Oil companies out of control

Think the current BP spill is bad?

"More oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico"


Oil spills have become a fact of life for people living in the Niger delta, writes John Vidal.

We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian village of Otuegwe after a long hike through cassava plantations. Ahead of us lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw it - the stench of garage forecourts and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air.

The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became. Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months.

Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked. ''We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots,'' said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. ''This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months.''

That was the Niger delta a few years ago, where, say Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks.

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of an ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in April.

That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines around the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.

On May 1 a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in Ibeno in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than 4.5 million litres into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $US1 billion ($1.1 billion) in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state, and another in Ogoniland. ''We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old,'' said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.

This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: ''Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable.''

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40 per cent of all the crude the US imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural areas, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shore from pollution.

''If this gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention,'' said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. ''This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta.

''The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do not care and people must live with pollution daily. The situation is now worse than it was 30 years ago. Nothing is changing. When I see the efforts that are being made in the US I feel a great sense of sadness at the double standards. What they do in the US or in Europe is very different.''

Nnimo Bassey, the Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth International, said, ''We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the US. But in Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments. The gulf spill can be seen as a metaphor for what is happening daily in the oilfields of Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

''This has gone on for 50 years in Nigeria. People depend completely on the environment for their drinking water and farming and fishing. They are amazed that the President of the US can be making speeches daily, because in Nigeria people there would not hear a whimper,'' he said.

It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that secret. However, two big independent investigations over the past four years suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far.

One report, compiled by WWF UK, the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5 million tonnes of oil - 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska - has been spilled in the delta over the past half century. Last year Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9 million barrels of oil was spilled and accused the oil companies of a human rights outrage.

According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.

Last month Shell admitted to having spilled 14,000 tonnes of oil last year. The bulk of it, the company said, was lost through two incidents - one in which the company claims that thieves damaged a wellhead at its Odidi field and another where militants bombed the Trans Escravos pipeline.

Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, says that 98 per cent of all its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants and only a minimal amount by deteriorating infrastructure.

''We had 132 spills last year, as against 175 on average. Safety valves were vandalised; one pipe had 300 illegal taps. We found five explosive devices on one. Sometimes communities do not give us access to clean up the pollution because they can make more money from compensation,'' a spokesman said.

''We have a full-time oil spill response team. Last year we replaced 197 miles [315 kilometres] of pipeline and are using every known way to clean up pollution, including microbes. We are committed to cleaning up any spill as fast as possible as soon as and for whatever reason they occur.''

These claims are hotly disputed by communities and environmental watchdog groups. They mostly blame the companies' vast network of rusting pipes and storage tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping stations and old wellheads, as well as tankers and vessels cleaning out tanks.

The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The government's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency says that between 1976 and 1996 alone, more than 2.4 million barrels contaminated the environment.

''Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and destroying vegetation. These incidents have become common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures within the existing political regime,'' a spokesman for the agency said.

The sense of outrage is widespread. ''There are more than 300 spills, major and minor, a year,'' Bassey said. ''It happens all the year round. The whole environment is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the massive difference in the response to oil spills. In Nigeria, both companies and government have come to treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm.''

A spokesman for the Stakeholder Democracy Network in Lagos, which works to empower those in communities affected by the oil companies' activities, said: ''The response to the spill in the United States should serve as a stiff reminder as to how far spill management in Nigeria has drifted from standards across the world.''

Other voices of protest point out that the world has overlooked the scale of the environmental impact. Ben Amunwa, an activist with the London oil watch group Platform, said: ''Deepwater Horizon may have exceeded Exxon Valdez, but within a few years in Nigeria offshore spills from four locations dwarfed the scale of the Exxon Valdez disaster many times over. Estimates put spill volumes in the Niger delta among the worst on the planet, but they do not include the crude oil from waste water and gas flares. Companies such as Shell continue to avoid independent monitoring and keep key data secret.''

Worse may be to come. One industry insider, who asked not to be named, said: ''Major spills are likely to increase in the coming years as the industry strives to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. When things go wrong, it will be harder to respond.''

Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil development in Ecuador, said: ''Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to care.''

There is an overwhelming sense that the big oil companies act as if they are beyond the law. Bassey said: ''What we conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident is that the oil companies are out of control.

''It is clear that BP has been blocking progressive legislation, both in the US and here. In Nigeria, they have been living above the law. They are now clearly a danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening again and again are high. They must be taken to the International Court of Justice.''

Shark expert honoured for conservation

Underwater adventurer and shark expert Valerie Taylor has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her service to conservation.

Together with her husband Ronald, Ms Taylor has fought for more than 50 years for the protection of underwater creatures, in particular the great white shark, the grey nurse shark, sea lions, the potato cod, the southern right whale and marine turtles.

She has also fought for the conservation of habitats, such as the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef Marine Park in Western Australia.

Born in Sydney in 1935, Ms Taylor spent her teenage years living near the sea in Cronulla, in Sydney's south, and met her husband when they were both members of the Sydney's St George spearfishing club.

After they both became champion spearfishers in the early 1960s, they decided to switch from killing fish to filming and photographing them.

"We saw what a terrible thing we were doing," Ms Taylor told AAP.

"I could speak about it because I was there.

"We were both champions and I knew that if we went out to a reef, we could take every good fish off it.

"We were decimating reef life."

Ms Taylor went on to became a multi-award winning underwater cinematographer and photographer, working on dozens of documentaries and major feature films, such as as Jaws, Orca and Sky Pirates.

Her fascination with the underwater world and admiration and respect for sharks has prompted her to risk her life on occasions.

In 1979, Ms Taylor was the first to test a stainless steel mesh suit designed by her husband as protection from sharks.

While wearing the suit, Ms Taylor enticed sharks to bite her by placing tuna under the mesh. Her husband filmed the encounters, enabling them both to gain insights into how different species of sharks feed and attack.

The Taylors' long-lasting relationship and adventurous careers have also been the subject of several films, including Sea Lovers and In the Realm of the Shark.

Easy to be lean when you're green

The no plastic diet ... packaged foods are often the most fattening.
Saying no to plastic packaging can have an unexpected benefit - weight loss.

When she goes to the supermarket, Bea Johnson takes along a sealable glass jar so the butcher can slide in a pork cutlet. In the bulk aisle, she fills reusable bags she makes from old bed sheets to carry rice, pasta, oatmeal or nuts.

In fact, everything she and her husband buy is without packaging: they make their own household cleaning products, buy soap that comes unwrapped and return milk bottles to suppliers for refills.

At least three times a week, Johnson phones marketing companies in her unrelenting war against junk mail.

"The amount of money you can save by just carrying your own water bottle is huge. Plus, the more you get away from plastic, the more likely you are to buy fresh," said Johnson, who blogs about her lifestyle in Marin County, California, at zerowastehome.blogspot.com.

The health benefits of a wrapper-free life are also a major theme for Colin Beavan in New York. He wrote a book, No Impact Man, which was about a year that he and his family spent without electricity and living with as little waste as they could. Although their experiment ended in November 2007, they have committed to staying packaging free.

"Most of the fattening foods, the bad stuff, come heavily wrapped. If you confine yourself to fresh products from the supermarket or farmer's market, your family is going to be a lot healthier," he said.

Beavan buys most of his food at the local farmers market. He returns his egg cartons and milk bottles to the farmers and buys round blocks of cheese that come without packaging.

"I think my family is a lot happier now," he said. "It's not simply about less packaging; it's about changing your whole outlook, about wanting less and getting so much more as a family."

I wondered if I, too, could live without any packaging, except for plastic bags I reuse during trips to the supermarket.

For the past month, every grocery item I've purchased has been without wrapping. I go to the bulk aisle of my local food co-op for pasta, rice, beans, flour, oatmeal, nuts and anything else that I can pour into my own bags, which are then weighed at the checkout counter.

I now have ten reusable bags, including a plastic one I use to buy loose spinach and broccoli. One of the strangest byproducts of this experiment has been my newfound respect for plastic; it is no longer discarded after a one-night stand, but has become more like a long-term relationship.

Apart from saving vast amounts of chemicals and oil that go into making shopping bags and reducing the giant soup of plastic clogging oceans, saying no to packaging has improved my waistline and my wallet.

With no more sad looking, single-serving microwave meals, and my coffee from a paper cup replaced with a drink from my water bottle, I feel more energetic and less stressed. Because I bring broccoli and carrots to work and do not touch additives, my skin is clearer. The sudden arrival of middle age spread has completely disappeared from my waist.

I also find myself cooking less. I have my plastic container of spinach and broccoli at work every day, so I feel less of a need for big meals.

Finding cage-free eggs and dairy products can be a problem, but many local farmers markets will refill your egg boxes and replace your milk bottles. I was almost overcome with joy when I found a supermarket steps from my home that sold chocolate and dried apricots in bulk, so dessert was back on.

Financially, all of this has been a major boost. Carrots and onions unburdened by plastic are a lot cheaper, and making my own shampoo saves money.

The major downside is that I am now a crushing bore. Where once my conversations might have been about sports and cinema, now all my sentences seem to begin with, "Did you know ..." followed by a list of places you can get refills on shampoo, honey or milk, or the best type of reusable bags for buying flour.

Electric car goes 1000km on a single charge

Electric car goes 1000km on a single charge
A Japanese group has managed to travel 1000km in an electric car without recharging.

A group of Japanese electric car enthusiasts has broken its own Guinness world record by driving a modified Daihatsu Mira more than 1000km on a single charge.

Japan's Kyodo News says the Mira was powered by a bank of 8320 Sanyo lithium-ion batteries commonly found in personal computers.

The current Guinness record stands at 555km for a journey between Tokyo and Osaka, but the group has asked record keepers to recognise the new effort, achieved at a race track in the Ibaraki Prefecture.

But the new effort was not without compromises. The team of 17 drivers managed an average speed of just 40km/h and the effort took 27-and-a-half hours.

Range remains one of the biggest barriers to consumer acceptance of electric cars, with most mass-market EVs due on the market in the next couple of years restricted to a range of just 160km.