Guardian Tank Farms: The ticking Lagos time bomb WEDNESDAY, 07 AUGUST 2013 00:00 BY ROSELINE OKERE FEATURES -FOCUS MANY Nigerians who have never visited Kirikiri Town will not readily enlist interest in visiting the community. The name itself evokes discomforting feelings in the psyche of not quite a few. The phobia may have been accentuated by the location of notorious prisons in the area. But while the residents of the town will readily allude to the fact that the correction centres – Kirikiri Maximum, Medium and Women Prisons – are about the most serene environment in the area, they will, however give testimonies of severe hardships which the pangs of tank farms’ location in the place have been unleashing on the populace in recent years. Kirikiri Town is however just one of the settlements in the axis sharing the ordeal of phenomenal traffic logjams and environmental abuse by the oil companies operating tank farms there. The Beachland Estate and Ijegun Town have over the years been hoping against hope that Lagos State government would fulfill its pledge to relocate these hazard harbingers from their communities. Last year, the state government, acknowledging an imminent disaster in the communities, pledged to ensure the relocation of tank farms, that have attracted a huge traffic of fuel tankers into the axis. But with more fuel storage facilities being erected around the communities, the days of relief for the residents may have been postponed. Already, some of the residents have started relocating from the settlements there, after unsuccessfully fighting against the encroachment of their environment, by environmentally life – threatening fuel storage and distribution facilities in the area. The Kirikiri, Ijegun and Apapa area of Lagos are already swarming with petroleum tankers and the attendant traffic logjam as a result of the petroleum tank farms sited there. Besides, the Lagos State Government has concluded plans to relocate these tank farms to avoid future disaster, saying that the Federal Government contravenes the Health Safety and Environment (HSE) law. About 15 years ago, the first settlers at the Creek View estate in Kirikiri Town began to develop their parcels of land, which was for residential purpose under the Lagos State Government and free from government acquisition. In 2005, Techno Oil Nigeria Limited arrived to set up the first of what would later become a chain of oil depots. Other tank farm owners at the estate are Index Oil, Swift Oil, Bovas Oil and Fatgbems Petroleum Limited. Also, in Apapa area of Lagos, the presence of tank farms has also been sending fears to other business owners around the area, who believed that any explosion from the any of the tank farms could raze down the residential buildings with high prospects of fatalities, with the residents believing logically that the presence of the fuel depots is a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode. The Guardian gathered that Techno Oil, Fatgbems Oil, Bovas Oil, Index Petroleum and Swift Oil, were sealed up by the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), for siting tank farms less than 200 metres away from residential area and operating the facilities without submission of Environmental Impact Assessment reports to the agency. But the companies were reopened shortly after they paid the necessary fines to the Lagos State Government. Residents of Apapa and businesses operating around the seaports have on several occasions appealed to the Federal Government to prevail on the oil marketers to relocate their tank farms, which they said, were less than the 200 metres away from their houses. The fear of having tankers being overturned due to the terrible state of the roads in the axis and having its contents spilled and igniting fire that can spread to a military installations like the Naval Base, is a fear which the residents could not wish away. Already, The Guardian learnt that some of the executive and trustees of Landlord Association in these areas, who speak against oil tanks farms presence and the nuisance presented by their operations, received threats of being put to silence either by diabolical means or otherwise. The residents said that only recently, the estates were thrown into pandemonium, confusion and bitter frustration following a major fire outbreak in one of the oil tank farms - the second time within a very short period of time. The residents believed that regulatory bodies and agencies have compromised the stringent standards for the setting up of these petroleum tank farms. They are concerned that Nigeria and the nation’s vital installations may be at the risk of environmental time bomb as a result of the indiscriminate citing of petroleum tank farms by oil companies. A petition written by the Kirikiri Creek-View Estate Resident Association and signed by Chairman of the association, I.C. P Umeh, Secretary, Ad Hoc Committee, David Oleka to the Minister of Petroleum Resources and obtained by The Guardian stated: “If Nigeria accepts that all the residents in our estate and their families are citizens of this country and that Nigeria is obligated to protecting our lives, properties as well as guarantee of fairness to freedom of living and association, then, we are urging the Department of Petroleum Resources to step into the frustrations that we and our entire families now face with these oil tank farms. “As residents in the estate neigbourhoods closer to the oil tank farms, we are badly affected by the chemical emissions and associated chemical odours emanating from the oil tank farms facility, which have remained a terrible nuisance and a source of many adverse effects to our health, safety, and quality of life. We also experience the effects from the tank farm storage excessive noise and vibration, which could impair hearing and monumental environmental damages to our dwelling places. “We have this conviction that unless there is an urgent intervention from DPR, there exist more and more of petrol/kerosene explosions, critical hideouts for criminals due to perpetual parking of petrol tankers and trailers by transporters to the oil tank farms, severe environmental and oil pollutions resulting from petrochemical hydrants, among others. Adding to their apprehension is the terrible state of roads within the Kirikiri Town. “Roads within Kirikiri are death traps. Most days, they are rendered impassable by oil tankers, container-bearing trucks and trailers who pay scant attention to environmental regulations. Daily road users groan in the intractable traffic they face due to the nuisance posed by these tankers and truck drivers. They said that the estate was currently under siege and serious security risk due to uncontrollable influx of miscreants and undesirable elements who accompany these drivers or sneak into the estate from the tank farms under the guise of working for the oil companies. The residents in the letter, noted that for the houses badly affected by the activities of the oil tanks farms, part of the mitigating measures suggested by the DPR team that visited the estate was that the facilities operators must buy up residential houses close to their petrol storage depots as quickly as possible at prices that guarantee owners’ comfort, together with adequate financial compensation to cover all inconveniences. They said that the houses which took members of the association years to build from a deep swampy land that gulped lots of filling sands were now been viewed and priced by some of the oil tank farms like a piece of bread, claiming that they are doing the residents favour. They claimed their efforts to ensure that LASEPA stepped into the matter proved abortive. “When the matter got to LASEPA, the agency believed that the oil tank farms were operating against known laws in Lagos State on environment and immediately sealed up the tank farms. But less than two days later, the farms were unsealed, after collecting necessary fines from the tank farms owners. Specifically, a former resident of the area who was forced to relocate due to the fear of explosion, Dr. Chris Onalo, in an interview with The Guardian, appealed to the Federal Government to ensure that the residents are compensated for being forced out of their houses. He said: “It took me several years to build my house, which I later sold to a tank farm owner at a price lesser than the present value of the property. I want the government to compensate me.” Speaking with The Guardian, the General Manager of LASEPA, Adebola Shabi stated: “We settled this issue two years ago. The Federal Government did not do the right thing for giving approval to tank farm owners to construct their tanks in residential areas. You know that granting of licences for the establishment of tank farms is the sole responsibility of the federal government. If the right things were done, this problem would not have arisen. “In 2010, when we clamped down on the them, we decided to bring peace by mandating the tank farm owners to construct water drainages to ease flooding around the residential estate, which is not up to 200 metres from the oil depots in the area. “They agreed to construct water hydrant in front of their depots and purchase fire engines to fight any outbreak of fire in the area. We are taking these measures because the oil tank farms are very close to residential buildings. “We signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the tank farm owners. It is just that the proper thing was not done right from the beginning, because we would have been able to advise the company on rules guiding the establishment of tank farms. All the things we asked them to do, they complied. The Federal Government did not do the right thing from the beginning. If the right things were done from the beginning, all these issues that are coming up now would have been addressed. “We are only trying to correct the issue and it’s going to be a gradual process. The government has already given them approval. He said that the Lagos State government has concluded plans to ensure that the tank farms around Kirikiri and Apapa area of the state are relocated. “Lagos State government is looking for a way to relocate some of the tank farms in Lagos State. There is no way you can have tank farms compacted in one place like the whole of Apapa in Lagos. There is possibility that explosion from any of the tank farms could result to serious disaster in the state. We are looking at the safety aspect and we felt that there is need for these people to be relocated. We have already recommended that the tank farm be relocated to avoid disaster. “The state government is working seriously on that. Most of the tank farms are not even ready to give back to the environment. They are degrading the environment and getting them to engage in corporate social responsibility is a problem. “Energy Tank Farm in Apapa is not environmental friendly. Some of their filling stations are not complying to environmental and safety law. I have said that the Federal Government has done wrong by allowing them to operate”. A legal professional, Gbolahan Gbadamosi told The Guardian that the permission given to the tank farm owners to set up their businesses around residential areas, contravenes Health Safety and Environment (HSE) law. Gbadamosi stated: “The legally accepted standards for locating tank farms is anchored on HSE. This is where companies that engage in business activities in both the upstream and downstream sectors of the petroleum industry are compelled by law to comply with all environmental health and safety laws, regulations, guidelines or directives. Such companies must conduct their operations in accordance with internationally accepted principles of sustainable development. “On the punishment for violation of such directive, it is located in the statutory powers given to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR). The question is does DPR has political will to enforce sanctions? To my mind, it remains to be seen whether it is so. DPR has power to close down oil installations including the filling stations. The closure is more in media stunt than real action”.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 06:57:52 +0000