By Samuel Oyadongha
Yenagoa— Environment advocacy group, Environment Rights Action and Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEn) has expressed concern over the incessant oil spills at Ikarama community in the old Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

The group lamented that in the month of June alone the community which is host to Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, and Nigeria Agip Oil Company, NAOC, had witnessed two oil spills and called on the relevant authorities to prevail on the oil companies operating in the Niger Delta to be alive to their responsibilities and save the environment from further despoliation.

Vanguard gathered that the first spill occurred on June 4, inside SPDC manifold from a leaking valve which was swiftly stopped by the company while the second spill was said to have occurred along the Trans-Niger Rumuekpe trunk line on June 23.

The latest spill to hit the sleepy settlement has reportedly spread along over 400metres of farm lands and water ways of the communities in the area, prompting the call by environment experts for the federal and state governments to rise up to probe the incidents.

According to the report made available to newsmen by the Yenagoa office of the Environment Right Action and Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEn), though the officials of SPDC had moved to site to stop the spill immediately it occurred on June 4, there were no signs that a Joint Investigation Visit and Report will follow the event as required by law.

In the report, the head of ERA in Yenagoa, Comrade Alagoa Morris, said while the first spillage occurred on June 4 along the SPDC manifold and valves in the area, the second took place along the Trans-Niger Rumuekpe trunk line on the June 23  in the community.

The ERA team reported that the volume of the spill was at over a thousand barrels and spread over 400 metres into farm lands and other parts in the area.

The group noted that though much of the crude oil spilled were on SPDC’s Right of Way, it has spread to surrounding swamps and flowed down through any low lying space into the Taylor creek.

It added that “SPDC and its contractors should not only be investigated in relation to the series of oil spillages but penalized for ignoring the need for JIV and clamping points without a JIV with the intention to hide facts and deny people justice.

“It is not enough for SPDC to claim that over 90 per cent of oil spills on its facilities were sabotage related, other stakeholders should also have the record and confirm. The importance of JIV report in terms of cause of spillage, volume of spill, damages and related recommendations makes this very critical.”

Some of the natives of the community, including a widow, whose farm was directly hit by the oil spillage, Mrs. Grace Ayerizima, said though she is yet to take any action to seek for compensation from the company, the SPDC management has refuse to discuss with her.