RVHA Tasks Oil Firm On Egi Gas Eruption

Rivers State House of Assembly has directed Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited to sustain the zero fatality record maintained so far on the Egi gas eruption.

The directive was contained in the interim report submitted to the Assembly by the Joint Committee on Environment, Energy and Natural Resources on the disaster in four communities in Egi clan, Egita, Obiyebe, Obite and Ogbogu in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area.

Presenting the report to the House last Tuesday, Hon Victoria Nyeche, representing Port Harcourt constituency I, said the oil firm has not ascertained the actual cause of the gas eruption four weeks after the incident, but has completely ruled out sabotage.

The committee also directed Total (E&P) to provide and distribute adequate relief materials to the impacted communities to ameliorate the sufferings of the people, noting that the local government council and the member representing ONELGA constituency I, should be involved in supervising the distribution process.

According to the report, the most impacted community appears to be Egita which is surprisingly classified in the none landlord category of Total E&P.

The report noted that the surge point areas are mainly farm settlements which had been cordoned-off thereby denying the people access to their farm.

The committee explained that economic activities have been hampered in the affected communities as the environment has been severely impacted upon in both surface and underground water as well as air and soil by gas.

Hon Nyeche, who is the chairman, House Committee on Environment, said the company claimed to be giving free medical facilities, relief materials and alternative source of potable water, while air quality sampling is consistently carried out and water samples are taken twice from all known water wells to monitor contamination.

She disclosed that the firm has put in place short term, medium term and long term measures to mitigate the challenge by paying compensation to the impacted families and strictly monitoring the situation.

In the medium term, they would continue to contain, pay compensation to families and communities, launch a study on environmental impact, while the long term measures would include commencement of remediation work and monitoring following the result from the environmental post impact study.

It would be recalled that the House mandated the two committees to investigate the incident following a resolution on the motion brought by Hon Gift Wokocha in  urgent public interest.