Today at 5 pm at the Umana Yana, a public scoping meeting will be held in relation to the application by ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, EEPGL for the establishment of a fifth offshore oil extraction project at the Uaru site.
In notices published across the media as required by the environmental laws of the country, ExxonMobil advised that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is required to be conducted before any decision is made on the project since it “may significantly impact the environment”. Members of the public therefore have 28 days from the notice of the application by EEPGL (May 02 – May 29) to make written submissions to the EPA setting out the questions and matters which they require to be answered or considered in the EIA. The meeting today and others scheduled across the country are for informational purposes.
After the end of the period for submissions to the EPA, an EIA will be commissioned by the EPA and following the delivery of the EIA a decision will be made on whether the Uaru project will be proceeded with.
Given its handling of the approval process for the fourth project – the Yellowtail development – there are serious questions as to whether the EPA is fulfilling its mandate on behalf of the Guyanese people or just delivering permits for oil extraction projects simply because this is what ExxonMobil and the Government of Guyana desire and demand.
The PPP/C government has made no secret of the fact that it believes that Guyana has a narrow window to extract oil while market conditions are highly favourable and before the wholesale transformation of the global economy to greener fuels. The interests of the government and ExxonMobil are therefore one and the same as evidenced by the ease with which both have spoken of the expansion of producing platforms to 10. This is an exceedingly dangerous convergence when two of the primary responsibilities of the government are the protection of the environment from undue risk – via the EPA – and the constraining of damage to the climate by limiting the release of greenhouse gases. The government’s intention for the relaxing of the stringent application of the law to ExxonMobil and its contractors was seen in the unjustified removal of the previous director the EPA, Dr Vincent Adams. This dismissal sent a collective shudder through the community of the environmentally conscious.
Despite its shortcomings, the Environmental Protection Act is still capable of ensuring that reasonable measures are taken to protect the environment from the ravages of the oil industry. The principal mechanism for accomplishing this is the EIA. The Uaru impact assessment would have to ponder the cumulative burdens of the increasing number of platforms. The Liza-1 platform which has been producing since December 2019 presents challenges across a range of areas from irreparable disruption of flora and fauna by seismic work and extraction, pollution of the area from processed water, discharge of noxious gases and the potential for a catastrophic spill.
With each ensuing platform approved – Liza-2, Payara and Yellowtail – those risks escalate in factors that require expert analysis. What dangers exist to marine life from the two platforms that are currently producing considering feeding grounds and the forced migration that could have occurred? What happens to insurance and the ability to contain pollution if two spills occurred at separate platforms? Are these risk multipliers being taken adequate account of by the EPA?
The EPA has been accused by environmentalist and geologist Simone Mangal-Joly of illegally granting an environmental permit for the Yellowtail project. Her concerns have not been answered by the EPA.
In her open letter of April 16 to the Executive Director of the EPA, Ms Mangal-Joly highlighted four areas where she said the EPA committed violations of the Act during the process leading up to the granting of the permit. The main violation, she said, stemmed from the beginning of the process where the EPA failed to disclose the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the EIA, ultimately denying the public adequate participation.
The TOR for a study specifies the obligations consultants are required to fulfil in the conduct of the study and the EPA failed to disclose the TOR for the Yellowtail EIA during the full duration of the statutory 60-day comments period. The TOR was released on December 13, 2021 – two days before the end of the public participation process – and after a letter was sent, by Ms Mangal-Joly, to the EPA appeals body, the Environmental Assessment Board complaining. The EPA has contended that it was not required to disclose the TOR.
Ms Mangal-Joly argued that while Sections 11(4) and 11(5) of the Act provide general guidance in the conduct of an EIA, Sections (11)(6) and (7) provide the necessary specificity for assessing each application through the development TOR. She added that although the EPA held public meetings, it still knowingly violated the law when it withheld the TOR for almost the entire process.
She also contends that the EPA breached the Act when it failed to assess the significant impacts before granting the permit.
“The EPA illegally deferred the assessment of impacts to the Environmental Permit. For example, Section 1.3 of the (Yellowtail) permit specifies that: ‘The Permit Holder shall conduct an updated targeted marine environmental baselines studies program to develop a robust understanding of the marine environment within the area of influence (AOI) of the Yellowtail project.’ Among the listed requirement is 1.3.c: ‘Fisheries stock assessment and impacts.’
“It is well established in law that deferring the assessment of impacts defeats the whole purpose of an environmental impact assessment. This deferral is procedurally incorrect, irrational, and illegal. The EPA’s core responsibility is to assess impacts and based on the findings, determine whether a permit should be granted for an activity,” the letter stated.
Ms Mangal-Joly added that the EPA has “disgracefully reneged on this responsibility” to the Guyanese people by mandating Exxon to assess the impacts of its own projects.
The environmentalist also accused the EPA of violating the processes set out in law when it did not publish the reasons for granting the permit and instead issued a notice of decision. She said that the EPA is required by law to identify and account for how significant impacts and public concerns were satisfactorily addressed before it granted a permit.
Another sore point during the public process was the repeated use of consulting firm ERM by Exxon to conduct its environmental studies. In that regard, Ms Mangal-Joly argued that the EPA knowingly failed to select the consultants according to the procedures specified in the EP Act.
“Whether one does it on a case-by-case basis or from a pool, or whether it is a local or foreign individual or company, Section 3(a) of the Act is clear that the Agency cannot select the consultants by itself; the selection must be done ‘with the assistance of internationally recognized environmental groups.’ This is specifically to avoid bias and underhandedness,” the letter said.
It is noteworthy that ExxonMobil, no doubt under pressure, has since said that ERM will not undertake the next EIA that has been scheduled. Small victories sometime do occur but the protection of the environment of this country from the dangers of oil exploration and extraction require the winning of a war which should be properly prosecuted by the EPA. This is not happening and today’s meeting at the Umana Yana could simply be one of those perfunctory set pieces intended to do the bidding of ExxonMobil and the government.
The EPA must answer the outstanding questions about its approval of the Yellowtail permit and ensure that the defects are not repeated in the Uaru process.
