The continued dumping of
industrial wastes and wrecked barge in the territorial waters of Rivers State by multinational companies like NOTORE, NNPC, Mobil, Intels, Oando, Agip, West Atlantic Shipping, Geo Fluid, Total Premier, Forte Oil, Transocean, SPDC, and other SPDC subsidiaries and so on, with little or no control is a criminal environmental offence which has to be stopped forth-with.
These companies had found it convenient to dispose of its wastes at sea, either by deliberate combustion in specially built vessels, or by straight forward dumping. Many of the toxic wastes, especially the organ-halogens, persist in the marine environment and bio-accumulate in the food chain, with associated consequences for fisheries, the mangrove vegetation and other legitimate uses of coastal water- ways, particularly human health.
Indeed, the dumping of industrial wastes in rivers and creeks is quite disincentive to clean technologies and clean production methodologies. This evolution was exemplified by the adoption of resolutions calling for a phase-out of the incineration at sea of noxious liquid wastes in (1988), and the phasing-out of the dumping of industrial wastes at sea in (1990) by the London Dumping Convention.
In 1993, the intergovernmental panel of experts on radioactive wastes disposal at sea, concluding almost a decade of work, stated that sea dumping differed from other available options for radioactive waste management. They pointed out “the diffuse-ability of the waste radio-nuclides in sea water which could result in trans- boundary transfer of these radioactive materials”, as well as the “comparative difficulty of monitoring radioactive waste packages dumped at sea.” For the intergovernmental experts, “the consideration of these characteristics, together with the relative difficulty of retrieval, was a necessary part of any assessment of the sea disposal option.”
Like GREENPEACE which is a non-government environmental organisation, the overwhelming majority of other Contracting Parties, is or the view that the international assessment of ‘ radioactive waste disposal option, provided a very strong basis on which to ban the dumping of radioactive wastes permanently, in full compliance with Article fifteen sub-section two of the London Convention.
To conclude a decade of controversy, in November, of 1993, the Contracting Parties to the London Convention adopted unanimously amendments banning the dumping of industrial wastes at sea effective 1st day of January, 1966 and their incineration at sea, and by majority vote the dumping of radioactive waste. The three amendments became legally binding on Contracting Parties to the London Convention and the Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) on 20th February, 1994; in other words, they are Laws in virtually the entire world.
Despite the numerous consequential effects on the environment to which man is
subjected to, chemical industries and, their operators have been very passive. Throughout the controversy over the dumping of radioactive and industrial wastes at sea, the representatives of the oil and gas industries had remained very discreet. Under the umbrella organization of the E & P Forum, the pressure group funded by the offshore industry, they attended all the meetings of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) , the London Convention, and regional Conventions such as the North-East Atlantic’s OSPAR Convention, the Mediterranean’s Barcelona Convention, and so forth.
Most offshore industries mentioned in the first paragraph of this write-up are known to have discharged quite a significant quantity of liquid and gaseous wastes into the air and waters of the coastal environment of Rivers State.
Often times, their installations are usually disposed-off at sea once they have aged. Also, decommissioned facilities such as vessels and barges are left uncared for everywhere within the state’s territorial waters. This attitude of these oil and gas operatives has continually caused lot of accident cases leading to loss of human lives and properties.
SPDC, NNPC and NOTORIE are not left out in the threat to marine environment, by empting noxious and hazardous materials into the rivers and creeks of the entire coastline of Rivers State.
Disposal of such installations on land by recyclable materials and by ensuring safe and controlled disposal of unavoidable residues would be in accordance with generally agreed principles of waste management.
In line with this thorough statement which summarized what the Brent Spar (an oil storage buoy) controversy was about, the North Sea Environment Ministers agreed “that decommissioned offshore installations, shall either be reused or be disposed off on land”, and they invited OSPAR (an international organization regulating marine pollution in the North Atlantic) to implement this agreement.” As a result, three weeks later, the OSPAR commission adopted by votes, notwithstanding reservations from Norway and the UK, “a moratorium on the disposal at sea of decommissioned offshore installations with a view to banning the disposal of such installations at sea.”
This decision entered into force on 4th August, 1995. Based on this environmental regulatory decisions highlighted, we are calling on oil, gas and other chemical operatives to stop henceforth the dumping of waste materials into the state’s territorial waters.
Instructively, both the Federal Ministry of Environment and her Transport counterpart in the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, should put up necessary plans to ensure strict adherence to emphasis compliance with standard international regulations and bring to book the culprits.
The enforcement of such laws to a great measure will check the alarming rate these oil and gas operatives degrade our coastal environment.
Fuayefika, a public affairs analyst, writes from Port Harcourt.

Tonye Fuayefika