Thursday January 17th 2008
Yesterday, over 30 local people again visited the RPS office in Belmullet to again let it be known that under no circumstances would they accept raw gas running through their community. Even though RPS group director PJ Rudden claimed recently to media that he was “pleasantly surprised” by the reaction to the short listed routes, he will be in no doubt what the majority of people in Kilcommon parish think of the routes following this most recent visit. Four members of the group went in to the RPS offices to outline some of their objections to the current pipeline proposals. They also handed in a petition signed by members of the community stating their objections to putting their pipeline anywhere through the Special Area of Conservation (SAC) in Glengad or the Special Protection Area of Broadhaven Bay.
It also emerged recently that the County Council are once again doing their utmost to assist Shell in anyway they can. This time they have put in a planning proposal to upgrade the road from the refinery site back to Glengad (via the Leanamore road). The upgrade of the road will cease immediately after the gate down to landfall leaving no doubt who the instigators of this upgrade are. Approximately 6 kilometres of the road will be widened while the whole of the road upgrade will be strengthened with wire mesh to withstand the increase traffic that the council forsee. This is yet another slap in the face to the local community, who having been waiting for road repairs for years but must watch their Council spend their taxes on Shell’s infrastructure.
It also seems that Shell are continuing with their long held strategy of blaming any problems they have on protestors actions.
During the Afri Hedge School that was held in Erris in early November, a talk was given by Fr Kevin O’Hara (who founded the Centre for Social and Corporate Responsibility, which monitors oil companies in Nigeria). He stated that in one case of an oil spill at which he was present, a Shell engineer upon turning up at the spill location was straight away able to point out to other employees what had caused the oil spill as it had been a reoccurring problem. However officially of course the Shell excuse was that sabotage had caused the oil spill. The only problem for Shell was that the Shell engineer had been caught on film directing the employees to the fault in the pipeline, which was the true cause of the spill.
It seems as if Shell are using a similar tactic here in Mayo. In the latest refinery ‘Environmental Report’ (18th Dec 07) that Shell has compiled, they admitted that one of their 4 dust collection points showed a reading that was well above their limit for dust deposition (measured 530mg/m2/day where 350mg/ m2/day is the limit). The dust collection pots were in place for over a month however Shell blame the high level of dust recorded on the fact that protestors “possibly vandalised” the dust gauge during an incursion on to the site on the 9th of November.
See the Environmental Reports (sic) here:
http://www.mayococo.ie/en/News/GasTerminal/Environmenta…2007/