By Samuel Oyadongha, Yenagoa

THE Ikeinghenbiri riverside which falls within the igerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC Brass Swamp Area of operation, is one of the communities in Olodiama clan in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. This serene settlement, with its alluring mangrove swamp vegetation, situated along the Ikebiri Creek, would have make a good location for shooting movies.

Ikeinghenbiri, which is traversed by Agip’s pipelines, including the Tebidaba/Ogboinbiri pipeline, is a predominantly fishing and farming settlement with a tiny proportion of the population involved in trade. However, fishing and farming activities which constitute the people’s means of livelihood have been crippled due to a crude oil spill from an underwater pipeline owned by the oil firm. The development has left the waters floating with crude oil and this is causing anxiety among the members of the community. The stench from the water is repulsive and could pose health risk to the natives.

Although the cause of the leak is yet to be ascertained, it is suspected to be a second party spill. “I cannot say exactly what caused this spill, but what we are certain of is that Agip’s own contractors are the ones working on the pipeline, digging, laying new pipes and doing back filling and all of that.

*Oil-impacted Ikeinghenbiri creek

“We should be able to know the cause when we come for a Joint Investigation Visit, JIV. The JIV will confirm the cause of spill; it may be either equipment failure or material failure,” a community source explained.  Oil firms have repeatedly blamed theft and sabotage for the majority of oil spills in the Delta, a claim strongly disputed by environmental activists who accused the former of neglect.

Vanguard Features learnt that  due to the peculiarity of the terrain, the troubled community folks, many of whom are poor, are now forced to rely on expensive frozen fish and other foodstuff ferried in from Yenagoa and other parts of the state by traders at exorbitant cost.

The oil leak which is now a source of grave concern to the people was reportedly discovered penultimate Monday by a woman, Madam Oron Peter, who was returning from a fishing expedition.  Though the natives said the leak was promptly reported to the company that owned the facility, they nonetheless lamented that it was still discharging crude into the environment.

Lamenting the plight of his people, the Deputy Paramount Ruler of Ikeinghenbiri, Chief Collins Adikoko, said the community had remained in distress since the discovery of the leak.

He said that the oil had spread into the creeks and natural fish ponds where most members of the communities plied their fishing trade. “We have consistently been neglected by Agip which pollutes our area without any form of compensation and if you go around our swamps and bush you see oil everywhere,” the Chief said.

Nigerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC and members of Ikeinghenbiri community, it was learnt, have scheduled a joint visit to the oil spill site in the area. Mr. Marshall Josiah, the Chairman of Community Development Committee in Ikeinghenbiri, said that the oil firm had been informed of the incident but regretted that the leakage is still ongoing. “The spill was reported to Agip officials as soon as it was discovered on Monday and as we speak (weekend), the spill is still going on. We have been notified by the management of Agip that they will be convening a joint investigative visit to the spill site.

“This visit will enable us to take stock of the damages done to our environment. Our fishermen were compelled to suspend fishing because the whole creeks and swamps were contaminated and today we can only depend on imported frozen fish.

“It is a strange thing for us as a fishing community to be buying frozen fish when we are supposed to be selling fish to others. We need relief and appeal to government to look into our plight.”

Madam Oron Peter who discovered the spill explained how it happened: “I saw it while I was going about checking and setting my fish traps. Everyone in this community knows that this has been my main source of livelihood; I don’t have any child to take care of me, so I’m struggling on my own to make ends meet. And so, when I got to that area along the pipeline, I first heard some sound from the water ahead of me. What came to my mind first was to know whether the sound was made by fishes.

As I moved closer with my canoe, I saw that it was crude oil bubbling and, seriously too. It had even spread far by the water current. When I proceeded from there to where my fish traps were positioned, the whole places were covered by the crude oil, even the fish traps.

I was really disturbed because the impacted area/swamp is one of the major areas within our environment where I go for my fishing with other women in the community. There is no way to set the fish traps in that area again.

“Even today I am just returning from where I went to check my fish traps. But there was no fish/crayfish; everywhere was just crude oil. I returned empty handed, soiled with crude oil. This is indeed the beginning of another suffering for us”.

Though Agip could not be reached for comments, the Environmental Rights Action, ERA, Field Coordinator in Bayelsa State, Comrade Alagoa Morris who visited the spill site after being contacted by the community, urged Agip to mobilize without further delays to stop the spill.

According to the environment watch group: “A properly constituted joint investigation visit should be carried out to ascertain the cause of the spill, record related volume of spill, spread and damages and recommend accordingly. “As usual, the community should be given their copy of the signed JIV report for their own records too. Agip should follow the JIV with proper cleanup of impacted environment, promptly”.