Chad-Cameroon pipeline gets World Bank OK

Washington, DC, Sept. 16 (ENS)— The construction of a 650 mile-long buried pipeline to carry oil from landlocked Chad in central Africa to Cameroon’s Atlantic coast is one step closer to reality over the objections of environmental and human rights groups.

The proposed pipeline will run from southern Chad to Cameroon's Atlantic coast
Map courtes CIA World Factbook

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has approved management’s response to a report by the bank’s Inspection Panel on three projects in support of the Chad Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project totaling $80 million.

The $3.7 billion project includes the development of 300 oil wells in the Doba Basin of southern Chad by a consortium of oil companies led by Exxon. Exxon and Shell are each financing 40 percent of the project and Elf is handling the remaining 20 percent. The governments of Chad and Cameroon would participate in joint ventures with the consortium to manage pipeline construction, but not the development of oil fields.

In June 2000 the World Bank agreed to provide more than $200 million to build the pipeline. Oil revenues are estimated to earn $2.5 billion over the next 30 years.

The governments of Chad and Cameroon have asked the World Bank for $115 million in loans that would cover a share in two pipeline construction ventures.

The pipeline has been opposed by many environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth who says oil spills may contaminate the groundwater, and the upgrading of existing seasonal roads could lead to illegal poaching and logging in areas that would otherwise be inaccessible.

“The findings of the Panel will lead to improvements in the ongoing implementation of this challenging project, which has enormous potential to bring great benefits to the people of Chad and Cameroon,” said World Bank president James Wolfensohn on Thursday after the Board meeting.

The report of the Inspection Panel, an independent internal auditing body, was prepared in response to a Request for Inspection submitted by Ngarlejy Yorongar, who was acting for himself and on behalf of more than 100 residents living in the vicinity of three oil fields of the Doba Petroleum Project. They claimed that their rights and interests had been, or were likely to be, directly harmed due to inadequacy of environmental assessment and compensation.

The panel agreed with Yorongar and the residents in finding that while many of the project’s activities are in compliance with the Bank’s policies and procedures, a number of them are not. These include a cumulative impacts assessment, and consideration of the environmental costs and benefits of alternatives to the proposed pipeline route.

The management action plan to address the panel’s findings focused on four areas - environmental and social compliance with the Bank’s policies and procedures, economic issues, poverty reduction issues, and monitoring and supervision.

On issues of environmental and social compliance, the Bank will work with Chadian agencies to prepare a Regional Development Plan, an extension of the Environmental Assessment and Environmental Management Plans that were written as part of the project’s preparation.

The Regional Development Plan will address the concerns about the project’s cumulative regional impacts raised by the panel, the Bank said.

Chad is one of the world’s poorest countries, with an estimated 80 percent of the population living on less than $1 a day. Oil revenues are eventually expected to more than double current government revenues.

The Bank report points out that by law, more than 80 percent of the oil revenues accruing to the government will be directed to expenditures in the priority sectors of health, education, rural development, infrastructure, environment, and water, and 10 percent will be saved in a fund for future generations.

The oil producing region will receive five percent of these resources to be managed locally, in addition to what it will receive through the national budget. The action plan will accelerate efforts to strengthen the capacity of government to manage these expenditures and to effectively monitor oil quantities produced and revenues generated.

But Friends of the Earth says there is no evidence that profits from the pipeline will be invested in projects aimed at development or poverty alleviation. “In fact, experience in neighboring African countries, such as Nigeria and Congo, proves otherwise. A 1995 World Bank report questioned the willingness of the Government of Cameroon to address the issue of poverty and criticized its financial management,” the group said, and it points to the “poor environmental record of Shell and Exxon in their overseas operations.”

In addition, the New York-based organization Environmental Defense has warned that a violent crackdown last June by the government of Chad President Idriss Deby is reason enough for the Bank to rethink its involvement in the oil development project.

“Government backed killings and torture show that that the World Bank must draw the line and recognize that the present Chadian government can only be expected to misuse loans,” said Delphine Djiraibe, president of the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights. According to news reports, in 1991 Deby used money from the pipeline project to purchase $3 million in weapons.

The Bank says its action plan will intensify monitoring and supervision of the project. Since the June 2000 project approval, the Bank says “exceptional resources” have gone into monitoring and support of the project’s implementation.

In addition, the project is under the independent scrutiny of the International Advisory Group and Environmental Monitoring Compliance Group, which has been regularly conducted since Board approval.

EPA report omits global warming data

For the first time in six years, the annual federal report on air pollution trends has no section on global warming, though president Bush has said that slowing the growth of emissions linked to warming is a priority for his administration.

The decision to delete the chapter on climate change was made by top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with White House approval. Agency officials said the decision was made because: the agency has issued two other reports on climate this year, and the annual report is mainly meant to track pollutants that directly threaten people or ecosystems – substances like lead, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide. The 2001 EPA report highlights reductions in almost all air pollution emissions, omitting the fact that carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise. The majority of US carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels. Including coal, oil, and natural gas. Under the Bush administration, the EPA has declined to set a national standard for carbon dioxide emissions. (NYT, ENS)

At least the watermelons are safe

In Russia, Andrei Buyanov, one of Moscow’s corps of atomic food inspectors, triumphantly declared that this year has seen practically no cases of radioactive watermelons in the region. Unfortunately for Muscovites, there were plenty of other radioactive fruits and vegetables this year. Moscow is 415 miles from Chernobyl, where an atomic reactor blew up in 1986; food found in the region can still be contaminated. Last year, inspectors seized more than 3,000 pounds of radioactive food bound for the stalls of the city’s 69 outdoor markets; this year, they expect to haul in 10 percent more. The riskiest foods are those foraged in forests – mushrooms, berries, and the like, which are generally hand-picked in the wild, making them harder to monitor than food grown in farms. Mushrooms, for instance, which are a staple of Russian cuisine, are prone to absorbing Cesium-137, a radioactive element with a half-life of 30 years. (NYT)

LA babies get a lifetime’s supply of toxic air in 2 weeks

A two-week-old baby in the Los Angeles, CA area has already been exposed to more toxic air pollution than the US government deems acceptable as a cancer risk over a lifetime, according to a report released Sept. 16 by an environmental campaign group. The study of air pollution in California by the National Environment Trust also said that even if a young child moved away from California, or if the air had been cleaned up by the time he or she reached adulthood, the potential cancer risk that he or she accumulates from simply breathing will not go away.

California, known to be the nation’s smoggiest state, already has a potential cancer risk to adults that is hundreds of times above levels set as acceptable by the EPA. But the report said children were more vulnerable to pollutants than adults because, pound for pound, they breathe more air, drink more water, eat more food and play outdoors more than adults. Diesel exhaust, the report found, was still the worst source of air pollution. (Reuters)

Bank says pipeline violates policies

In a major blow against a controversial oil pipeline project in Ecuador, the former head of the World Bank’s environment department has found that the project fails to comply with the Bank’s social and environmental policies.

In a 27-page report released by environmental groups in Germany and the US Sept.13, Robert Goodland concluded that the environmental impact assessment submitted by the Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP), or Crude Oil Pipeline, violated all four applicable policies. Those include the Bank’s policies on environmental assessment, natural habitats, involuntary resettlement, and indigenous peoples.

The report is likely to embarrass the German bank WestLB, which leads a consortium of banks that arranged $900 million in loans for the project, as well as top officials of the Ecuadoran government, who have insisted that the project complied with Bank standards.

The World Bank itself declined to invest in the pipeline because of environmental and social concerns.

The environmental groups that commissioned Goodland’s report, including Amazon Watch, Environmental Defense, Greenpeace, and Urgewald, said Goodland’s findings should force WestLB to suspend its participation in the project. (IPS)

UN says global treaty to limit mercury needed

World governments should launch talks for a legally binding treaty to limit mercury damage to human and ecosystem health, an international group of 150 scientists advised Sept. 13.

The Global Mercury Assessment Working Group of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) concluded a week-long meeting in Geneva with the recommendation that governments negotiate a treaty. In the meantime, countries should reduce mercury risks by cutting or eliminating the production and consumption of the metal by substituting other products and processes, they said.

Exposure to mercury is known to cause permanent damage to the brain, nervous system, and kidneys. Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable as mercury may damage the developing fetus. While mercury is released naturally form rocks, soil, and volcanoes, human activities have boosted atmospheric levels to some three times above pre-industrial levels, the scientists said.

Estimates vary, but the UNEP group of experts says some 5,000 to 10,000 metric tons of mercury are thought to enter the atmosphere every year, 50 to 75 percent of it from human activities.(ENS)