SPDC Toxic substance in Ogulagha kingdom, other areas might cause Cancer, expert warns – The Liberator

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By Ndu Samuel

”I couldn’t believe myself that a corporate international oil company like Shell with all the ISO standard certification and acclaimed practice of HSE compliance would use this kind of drilling chemicals without recourse to the environment where their host communities live on or could not curtail and contain harmful hazardous chemicals materials of which they know that are harmful to the environment.”

These were the words of Warri based environmental activist/ EIA experts and researcher Comr. Franklin Magada when he led team of environmentalist to investigate the level of effect of the toxic substance dumped by Shell in the riverine communities of Burutu local government and to ascertain the level of impact on the surface water on Sunday 23rd February 2020.

Magada stated that such careless act by shell ”has further shown that the IOCs we have in this part of the world, Niger Delta are only concerned about to drill oil and have no regard for the environment where they are working and the people’s well-being.

The expert disclosed that ”Through the investigative site visit with my team of environmentalist, we have taken control samples from the said environment and samples of water, aquatic dead fishes, sea shore plants and soil content from the already contaminated environment to run water physiochemical parameters analysis, heavy metal composition and analytical impact severity and consequences of this toxic substance in coat that has pose this level of hazardous harmful effect to the environment, to determine the real contaminant.

”After the analysis we will publish the results of the matrix of the analysis, the contaminants and come out with our reports of findings.” He assured.

”This is like a repeat of what happened to Koko community at Exscravos Bay in Delta State years ago on 1988, where hazardous harmful chemicals substance were released as waste to the river without recourse to the environment and the human living habitat there that leads to agitation of Nana, a community member who report to the government that leads to the establishment of Nigeria environmental laws and world environmental convention.

The environmentalist further advised the communities around not to eat the dead floating fishes that are already contaminated with the harmful hazardous chemicals which might cause Cancer or other ailments and deadly diseases to their bodies and reduce life.

The team leader also assert that the impact might take up to five years to remediate the environment to its natural level, adding that the whole of the aquatic marine life of the environment is been affected up to the floral and faunas and to recolonized those marine life needs a continuous marine biological remediation up to a year.

He calls for emergency remediation process and a propelled medical examination of the villagers that have been eating those fishes, ”so that we don’t wake up one morning and see that people are dying.” He said

He emphasized that the remediation is important because fishing is the predominant occupation of the people. He appealed that relief materials be sent to the people pending when the environment is been remediated.

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