Four oil spills in Nigeria that Shell has claimed to have had cleaned up are still polluted, according to a report in The Guardian. The human rights group, Amnesty International, says that after examining four oil polluted sites in the Niger delta, they remain ‘visibly contaminated’, though Shell says it has cleaned them.
The report alleges there have been oil spills at least seven times since 1990, and in 2009 a fire broke out lasting 36 hours, which lead to another major spill. When UN environment programme inspectors visited the site in 2010, they found high levels of contamination.
The report states: Earlier this year Amnesty International revisited the Bomu manifold three times and found the site still massively contaminated, despite claims from Shell and the Nigerian government’s watchdog pollution body that it had been cleaned up satisfactorily in 2012.
“Water containing oil … flows along the path of the Shell pipelines. At places there are pools of oil. Some soil is black and hard. The three fish ponds, owned by a local family, are covered in a thick oily sheen, and show no signs of life. The spills … have contaminated fields and a neighbouring forest and have spread down into the Barabeedom swamp,” says Amnesty, working with the Port Harcourt-based Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD)."
The people, animals and surrounding environment of the Niger Delta should be protected. Will you join me in urging Shell to clean-up its alleged Niger Delta oil spill?
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