Ministry of Environment has no knowledge at all about the petroleum activities, says consultant’s report

It is 2:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday and Henry Irumba, the chairman of the Local Council of  Kaiso Tonya landing site village on Lake Albert is repairing his fishing nets under the shade of his house to avoid the sweltering sun.

“It has become very hot ever since oil exploration activities started here,” Irumba says pointing towards Ngassa II, an oil well located a stone throw away from his home. The well holds over 300 million barrels of oil in Lake Albert , part of the Albertine Graben on western Uganda border with the DRC Congo and home to an estimated 2 billion barrels of oil.

While the rest of the country excitedly waits for the oil to be pumped from the ground by various multi-nationals led by Tullow Oil of the UK, Irumba is already disillusioned. He blames the oil exploration activities, including flaring (burning to test the fuel) for disrupting his livelihood and the exceedingly scotching sun.

“Even the fish has vanished,” he says, “they [oil companies] put lights in the lake that made it even worse.  Now fishermen have to go as far as Congo to catch mature fish.”

The fishing net Irumba is fixing is testimony to the depletion here; it is intended to catch very young fish since he claims the big fish is no more.

His drying catch - salted and laid out on a wide woven basket to dry from the sun, gives a more vivid picture of the crisis. A mature Nile Perch can grow as big as 200kg and measure six feet in length. The ones he is drying are tiny, slightly smaller than a mobile phone. “We used to catch about 100 Kilograms of fish in good days but today even two kilograms is a problem,” Irumba says.

Fishermen on other landing sites including in the oil exploration areas like Wanseko in Buliisa and Sebagoro in Hoima all blame their fate on oil activities. They say Tullow Oil’s marine seismic operations in the lake may be the genesis of fish depletion.

According to Tullow Uganda’s head of Corporate Affairs, Jimmy Kiberu, seismic activity can only be carried out after receipt of approved Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) from environmental authorities.

Adding that fish depletion is a documented general trend that has nothing to do with their activities but a result of over fishing and the use of illegal fishnets. This area is plagued by over-fishing, and harvesting of immature fish to supply the illegal export market in the DR Congo.

The residents here also say that the burning of fuels—producing a lot of thick dark flames—on Mputa 5, 4 and Waraga wells in 2006 affected them and possibly their lake. The flaring formed dark clouds that geologists say cause acidic rains which are harmful to living things. “Tullow people told us that the burning was dangerous and was suspended because it could make us blind,” Irumba says, “That is why they did not burn Ngasa 1 and Ngasa 2, they said.”

The only form of livelihood all villagers here have known is fishing. They are anxious that their only survival activity is dying out.

Yet a bigger challenge that Irumba and his community are not aware of is that two giant oil wells belonging to Tullow Oil; the Kingfisher and Ngassa 2, hold about 300 million barrels of oil each in Lake Albert. An oil spill here could completely ruin Irumba and the other villagers since the oil companies have not a mechanism or policy to deal with such disasters that are quite common in oil exploration.

Early last year, Wilson Mwanja, commissioner of Fisheries in the ministry of Agriculture, warned that Uganda’s fish exports would soon be rejected in the environmentally sensitive countries of the the European Union that consumes 80 percent of Uganda’s fish exports.

Fish is Uganda’s third most valuable export. According to Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters Association (UFPEA) already there has been a steady decline in the revenue obtained from the fish exports.  In 2005, Uganda fetched US$143 compared to US$82 million recorded in 2010.

Irumba and Mwanja are worried about fish because it is what brings food to the table but conservations say that other marine life is at stake too.

Wild life

The oil companies have constructed hospitals, schools and roads. Residents used to spend 6 hours travelling from Hoima to Kaiso Tonya. But following the reconstruction of the 80km road, it takes two and a half hours. This means easy access for tourists but critics say that oil exploration activities have done more harm than good already.

Residents say that Kaiso Tonya Game reserve has been depleted of a number of animals. Elia Kasumba, a regular traveler on this route says that before the oil activities, buffalos, baboons, antelopes, were a common feature. Today, one is lucky to see even a single baboon.

Kaiso Tonya is one of the eight wildlife and forest reserves in the Albertine Rift. The rift also consists of five national parks (Murchison Falls, Queen Elizabeth, Kibale, Semuliki and Rwenzori Mountain).

Conservationists say that the Albertine Rift—home to Africa’s 52 per cent of all birds; 39 per cent of all mammals,  14 per cent of reptiles, 35 per cent of all butterflies and 19 per cent of all amphibians—is one of the most important conservation eco-regions in Africa.

Potential

This is the heart of Uganda’s tourism industry that earns the country over US$600 million. Yet with ambitious plans like Uganda Tourism Association President Amos Wekesa’s  7 Wonders National Program that aims at turning the sector into a US$2.5 billion (about Shs 7 trillion) annual earning venture, the future would seem even brighter. The programme involves asking Ugandans to choose the country’s 7 wonders.

Considering that Lonely Planet, a respected international publication, chose Uganda as the number one destination among the top 10 countries that tourists intend to visit in 2012, such ambitions supported by the World Bank and USAID cannot be underestimated.

Wekesa is even more emphatic. He believes that if America with not more than 400 bird species earns US$4 billion (about 9 trillion) from bird watching, Uganda with her 606 species in the Queen Elizabeth National Park alone and over1000 over all can earn much more than the current less than US$50 million from bird watching.

David Johnston of Daniel Johnston & Co. Inc, an international petroleum consulting firm shows that Uganda could earn up to US$130 billion in profit from the oil in 20 years. Compared to the US$50 billion that Uganda would earn in the same period from tourism at the rate of US$2.5 billion, tourism earnings would seem meager.

However, while Uganda’s oil might have finished in the 20 years, conservationists say that if sustained properly wild life can last forever.

Glaring threats

But with oil activities at the heart of the Rift, all this is at stake. A study by Dr. Emmanuel Kasimbazi of Makerere University revealed that since the first trace of oil was discovered there, the Albertine Graben’s environment has been disrupted.

“Because wildlife is so easily disturbed by noise, pollution, extending infrastructure and human presence, oil production has in many parts of the region, especially in natural ecosystems, been seriously harmful for the environmental balance,” Kasimbazi’s report reads in part.

Most of the animals in Kaiso Tonya, residents say, have migrated ever since the flaring (burning to test fuel) especially due to the a thick dark smoke that covered the reserve for two weeks, too much noise, too much heat and light.

“We can never know the number of animals that migrated because of the noise, heat because we do not have tools to monitor all this,” AFIEGO’s Dickens Kamugisha told The Independent, “that is what happens when you fail to put in place a law guiding exploration of oil in protected areas.”

On April 15, 2010, Uganda Wildlife Authority Planning and Environment Impact Assessment Coordinator, Edgar Buhanga, told MPs that several small animals have died and “we have lost four big ones due to road kills and there could be more”.

“Highly threatened wildlife have been hunted and killed by oil workers. This includes the last male reedbuck, an antelope at risk of extinction in Kabwoya wildlife reserve by workers of Busitema Mining Services, a Tullow Oil contractor,” adds a 2010 report, Contracts Curse: Uganda’s oil agreements place profit before people by Civil Society Coalition on Oil in Uganda, “Wildlife managers and local community members claim that oil workers had previously been killing other animals in Kabwoya wildlife reserve.”

When The Independent contacted Dr Andrew Seguya, the executive director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, he denied that oil activities were causing any harm to the environment. “If there is any, it is very minimal,” he said, “that is why we are in place, that is why environmental impact assessments are carried out, as far as am concerned no animal has been reported dead as a result of oil activities and no waste is dumped in national parks,” Sseguya said.

He seems to have rehearsed then Energy Minister Hillary Onek’s line. “The toxic wastes are always treated and buried and they [oil companies] have been managing waste very well,” he would say.

This was not true. In Kaiso Tonya for instance, Hardman was land-spreading their waste and drill cuttings. In Semliki Community Wildlife Area, years after the three wells, Turaco1, 2 1nd 3 were abandoned- waste pits and flaring pits remained uncovered and animals could be seen drinking from there.

Several open waste pits containing non-flared oil like at Waraga have been recorded. Even by last year at Buffalo East Five in Murchison falls waste pits with drill cuttings and waste mud water were attracting animals.

Oil waste

Recently when elders in Acholi sub-region at an investment forum in Gulu accused government and the oil companies of dumping oil waste in Murchison Falls National Park, Honey Okwalinga, an assistant commissioner for energy in the Ministry of Energy, conceded the problem.  He added that the waste would be transferred somewhere else.

“We are aware that oil spills can contaminate water sources leading to sicknesses but people should also realize that it takes time to set up best international practices for oil wastes management,” Okwalinga said.

But Lillian Nsubuga, UWA’s Public Relations Manager has contradicted Okwalinga’s view. “The companies collect oil waste from all the drill pads and put them in huge containers located in specific designated areas outside the national parks at the Tangi Site near Pakwach in the north and at the Ngara Site near Bugungu in the south,” she wrote in The Daily Monitor.

Management of oil waste has been a contentious issue. According to Tullow Oil, waste management could cost Uganda between 5%-10% of well costs. But fearing that the companies might fail as they try to minimize costs, NEMA retained the responsibility of managing waste for a separate private company which is not yet in place.

No waste testing equipment

Appearing before the parliamentary adhoc committee, Florence Grace Adong, a Commissioner in the Directorate of water resource management said the ministry of Water and Environment lacks laboratory equipment to handle the waste generated in the oil and gas sector.

The existing laboratory located in Entebbe, established in 1996, can only test drinking water and minor environmental quality activities. She noted that outsourcing testing of oil waste is an expensive venture—one bottle of oil waste tested costs the government Shs 8 million. Conducting oil tests in the 64 wells that have been drilled would then be too costly.

And while exploration activities are going on at break neck speed, Water and Environment Minister Maria Mutagamba plans to secure the Shs 30 billion needed for oil waste managing including procurement of a mobile lab in the next five years.

No wonder, the Norwegian consultants Arntzen de Besche stated that “the Ministry of Water and Environment demonstrated in our meeting no knowledge at all about the petroleum activities,” a 2010 report notes.

According to officials at WWF Uganda some impurities can be found in some oil drilling chemicals such as Barite—known to exist with impurities of mercury, lead, cadmium that can be the likely source of heavy metal contamination. These metals are known to cause cancer and birth defects are also harmful to animals, birds and plants.

Isaac Ntujju, the officer in charge of the oil and gas department in NEMA concurs. He says the waste generated from the oil wells contains elements that are hazardous to the environment.

What is more worrying is that even the Petroleum Bill 2010 does not absolutely prohibit environmentally harmful processes like flaring, the companies can still write to the energy minister for approval.

Government technocrats have talked of drawing a Biodiversity Policy that would allow the country to demand compensation in case of an adverse impact on the environment. But even this would depend on the free will of the oil companies.

Worse still, Uganda’s Production Sharing Agreements indicate that if the government introduces new laws that are environmental-related and increase costs for the oil companies, the government must cover these costs.

The PSAs also indicate that where the company causes environmental damage, the government can only take action to ensure compliance and recover expenditure incurred in connection with such action—meaning that there are no fines at all for causing environmental destruction.

“Deterrent fines are widely recognised as crucial to preventing regular and large oil spills. A US academic study found that a fine increase from US$1to US$2 per gallon for large spills decreased spillage by 50 percent,” a 2010 report notes. “That the contracts provide no basis for fines, while Uganda simultaneously lacks an effective regulatory regime for the oil industry, clearly represents worst practice,” the report adds.

According to the Uganda Wildlife Society, Uganda’s legal framework related to oil and gas shows a number of lacunas that may create conditions similar to those in the Niger Delta. A report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that there were more than 6,800 spills in the Niger Delta between 1976 and 2001.

The National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAPE) in its study of January 2011 called for measures such as effective law enforcement and compliance to environmental laws and policies. Even Brian Glover, the former Tullow Oil boss, before he left, decried the lack of an oil and gas waste management specific law. As it is, the Uganda government’s eyes are only for the oil dollars; wild and marine life can choke.

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