Questions still unanswered at Longtail EIA meeting

Dear Editor,

I wish to thank the organizers for inviting me and helping to satisfy the legal requirements which would include the need to consult the public and satisfy their concerns.

For the benefit of the Guyanese public and the EPA I wish to share my experience.

We received a hard copy document titled “The Longtail Development Project” a document consisting of 48 pages representing that it was a “Plain Language Summary of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Longtail Development Project, including the key findings of the EIA and the measures that ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) will put in place to manage potential impacts.”

There were about 25 persons seated when the presentation began although there were about 2 minutes to spare before the scheduled start time (17:00 hours). There was no loss, as it turned out, because the presentation was redone for those who were not there at the start.

After each presentation, it was announced that questions would be addressed in either of three small groups which those present were expected to join. There were about two or three facilitators per group. One group addressed environmental matters. We were instructed that the questions raised would be recorded on paper for the benefit of the organizers.

In the environmental group which I joined, there was no microphone provided although each questioner was competing with the noise from a floor fan. Our facilitator offered to repeat the question for my benefit. There were about 10 people in that cluster.

His deputy was someone who spoke in a thick foreign accent. I had more difficulty understanding his responses than the questions which came in barely audible (to me) English. I was only about five feet away from the head table. In fact, no one was more than 12 feet from the table.

My questions

My first question was “Could you provide any clarification on a question raised since around 2018 from the documents provided in one of these sessions in which there was reference made to 4,000 barrels of sewage generated per day by the operations? No one seems to have been able to clarify whether this was human waste or waste water mixed with petroleum waste.

Answer: We cannot speak for whoever presented so many years ago.

My second question was “Can you advise who audits your adherence to all the safeguards and procedures that you assure us are in place.”

Answer: None received as yet.

For the benefit of those who need a refresher on question #1,1 here is the article in Kaieteur News on the subject:

https://kaieteurnewsonline.com/2022/10/09/guyana-gets-one-barrel-of-sewage-for-every-barrel-of-oil-pumped-at-liza-1-melinda-janki/^[1]

General

I made it clear from the outset that I wanted the organizers to register the fact that we Guyanese had a memory for previous presentations and would appreciate some effort to make sense of what we were hearing.

I pointed out that there was a material gap between theory and Guyanese experience where despite all the representations to the contrary, our people in the interior were reporting oil in the fish caught in some cases. I also pointed out that our lived experience was that the 40+% growth in Gross Domestic Product was only being felt in growth in expenses and not in income.

I do not know whether the questions I raised were to the level of complexity that would challenge a company of the gravitas of Exxon Mobil Guyana. I am a simple man and have presented two simple questions which I am still looking forward to having addressed.

If the 4000 barrels of sewage reference made no sense, we must wonder at the representations made currently.

With regard to the second question, that is, who is responsible for auditing the adherence to the safeguards, I think the public would be interested to know a) whether the personnel are internal or external to Exxon and its affiliates, b) how long they have been responsible for these audits, c) whether the Guyanese public are entitled to a copy of the audit reports, and if so, whether we could have the benefit of safety and environmental audits of previous projects.

References

1. https://kaieteurnewsonline.com/2022/10/09/guyana-gets-one-barrel-of-sewage-for-every-barrel-of-oil-pumped-at-liza-1-melinda-janki/ ↩