Bayelsa: Rotary Club Harps On Remediation Of Nigeria’s First Oil-Well Community

The Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Eco Chapter has called for the remediation of Otuabagi Community hosting Oloibiri oilfields in Ogbia, Bayelsa State.
The chapter President-elect, Mr Iniruo Wills, a former Commissioner for Environment in Bayelsa, made the call on Saturday during the club’s engagement with stakeholders from the community.
The Tide source reports that Oloibiri is Nigeria’s historical community, where oil was first discovered in commercial quantities in 1956.
Wills said the meeting was intended to draw attention to the adverse environmental effects after oil production stopped in the community many decades ago.
He said that the club’s visit to Otuabagi was to take stock of the negative impact of oil exploration on the community and draw attention to the need for remediation.
He said that although oil exploration had stopped in the area over 30 years ago, residual oil leakages still polluted the environment whenever it rained.
Wills further said that the development was subjecting residents to untold hardships due to the lack of measures to mitigate leaks from the dry wells.
He, therefore, called on the Federal Government and oil industry to be responsive to the plight of oil-bearing communities, especially when the oil wells had dried up.
In a speech, a Public Health Physician, Dr Bieye Briggs, said that residents complained that crude still oozed out intermittently from the wellheads to pollute their environment.
Briggs said the people were in great danger, adding that aquatic lives, including fishes and shrimps, were being destroyed by oil.
“Those hydrocarbons discharged have been concentrated within the aquatic space and contaminate the fauna and flora and they become poisonous to human lives.
“That is why within a period of 10 years to 15 years you begin to see cancer, kidney diseases, liver problems, lungs and respiratory disorders because of the oil pollution in the environment,” he said.
Briggs also said that the residual oil leakages also affected the underground waters, which the people also depended on.
He said that the community also reported that they often found oily sediments floating on their stream.