Question from Shell accountability campaign

Question from Shell accountability campaign

1. Question on Sakhalin

Background:

In 2004 Shell’s Sakhalin II operating company, Sakhalin Energy Investment Corporation (Sakhalin Energy) agreed to commission the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to assemble an expert Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP) to review the project’s impacts on the critically endangered Western Gray Whale.  In 2005 the ISRP concluded that Sakhalin II and other projects in the area “pose potentially catastrophic threats to the [Western Gray Whale] population.” [1]

The ISRP and its successor panel, the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP), have consistently expressed concern that Sakhalin Energy has failed to provide adequate and timely data to these scientific panels, and has failed to adopt many of these expert panels’ recommendations. This failure occurs despite the fact that support for the ISRP and WGWAP, and adherence to their recommendations is a condition of financing for the project.

In February, 2009, the WGWAP issued a report (WGWAP-5 Report) which expressed “urgent concern” that the number of observed critically endangered western gray whales offshore Sakhalin Island in the summer of 2008 was “unexpectedly low,” and that “[a] precautionary response to the present situation would be to establish a moratorium on all industrial activities, both maritime and terrestrial, that have the potential to disturb gray whales in summer and autumn on and near their main feeding areas.”  The WGWAP-5 report also expressed “disappointment at the lack of progress toward implementation of recommendations from WGWAP-4 and the failure of Sakhalin Energy to provide expected meeting documents in a timely manner…” [2]

Question: Given the scientific experts’ concern that the Western Gray Whale may be on the brink of extinction, why is Shell failing to fully cooperate with the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel? Given the scientists’ call for oil companies to follow the precautionary approach, and for Sakhalin II to establish a moratorium on industrial activities in and near the Western Gray Whale feeding area, will Shell cancel its proposed 2009 seismic testing for Sakhalin II? [3]

[1] See Impacts of Sakhalin II Phase II on Western North Pacific Gray Whales and Related Biodiversity: Report of the Independent Scientific Review Panel, 2005, available at:

 http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/impacts_of_sakhalin.pdf

[2]: See WGWAP-5 report, available at http://www.iucn.org/wgwap/meetings/wgwap_5/

[3]  For more information see: http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2974

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2. Question on Argentina: OIL SPILL IN RIO DE LA PLATA

Background information:

In January 1999 a Shell oil tanker collided with a German ship in the channel of access to Rio de la Plata estuary. The oil spill was of 5,300 tons, stretching for 30 km along the riverside of Magdalena, a town in the north-east of w:st=”on”Buenos Aires province, thus resulting in the largest oil spill in fresh water. Pollution affected more than 17 million people living in that area, and it had a great impact on the Parque Costero del Sur (w:st=”on”South Coast Park), a valuable wildlife area that is considered a biosphere reserve by UNESCO. Shell claims that the container was loaded with light and highly volatile hydra crude, from which it can be deduced that 40% of it evaporated and became part of the greenhouse gases.

In 2002, the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the Royal Dutch/Shell to carry out a 35-million dollar coastline cleanup. This turned out to be the most important environmental court case in Latin America.

Until now Shell has avoided its responsibility and the effects of the oil spill continue causing damages in the coastal ecosystem and in the local community.

Question:

How and when Shell will repair the disaster taken place in the coast of the Río de la Plata – Buenos Aires – Argentina after the Magdalena disaster happened in 1999 and whose sequels even persist?

For more info: http://www.petroleomagdalena.com/