A fresh oil spillage occurred, weekend, at Okpe-Olomoro in Isoko South local government destroying aquatic life and economic crops and also polluting the groundwater and fishing ponds in the community.
The crude oil spill from a Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) drilling site in the village affected was said to have been from an obsolete pipe and was washed into the nearby community by rain.
When Vanguard visited the community on Monday, dead fishes were found in the fishing ponds owned by Mr. Ikibe Usigho who said that the crude oil entered the houses of some villagers.
Former Commissioner in the defunct Bendel State and a celebrated academic, Dr. George Idodo-Umeh who conducted Vanguard round the polluted ponds and land said: �I am disappointed that the more the people of Olomoro complain of the damage Shell is causing to them because of the company�s undesirable quest for oil in our land, the more damage they cause to our homeland and people�.
�You can just imagine, the poor people are suffering already and without any precaution, the SPDC has just added to their woes by spilling crude oil and polluting their environment because it wants oil at all cost. They did not protect their equipment and they did not care about the people living in the area. You can see the results for yourself- dead fishes, damaged aquatic life and polluted groundwater. The soil here will be rendered infertile in the next five to 10 years, I hope you can see the plantain plantations and other economic crops, whatever comes from those economic crops and trees cannot be eaten again because of the pollution.
�Why should our people be subjected to this kind of pollution and treatment, do we not have right to a healthy living, they polluted our environment not quite long ago, we complained and they did nothing.
It is an insult to us that an oil company came to our land and they are telling us that they own the right of way (ROW).
Which right of way, does right of way mean right of pollution; who even told them that they own the land; it is Olomoro land. Even if they have right of pollution, do they have right of air, right of our ground water, right of our wildlife?� he asked.
Efforts by Vanguard to get a reaction from the contractor handling the drilling project for the company at Okpe-Olomoro proved abortive but a staff said it was a minor spillage that resulted from a burst pipe. He said that if not for the heavy rainfall, the crude oil would not have found its way to the neighboring homes, farmlands and fishponds.
Vanguard was reliably told that some officials who knew the implication of the damage had before our arrival pleaded with the affected villagers to shield the spillage from the press and promised to reward them.