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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B7. Istanbul 2004
gas flaring and this increase was due to the
government's determination to protect the environment
and ensure the optimal and functional use of Nigeria's
gas resources.
viii. Oil Pipeline Act 1956 (as amended by Oil pipelines
Act 1965) which prevents the pollution of land or any
waters.
The Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA), which
was recently made part of the Ministry of the Environment is
legally vested with the responsibility of protecting and sustaining
the — Nigerian environment through formulation and
implementation of regulatory frameworks. The National Policy on
the Environment comprises one of the instruments developed by
the agency to carry out its tasks. The document describes
guidelines and strategies for achieving the policy goal of
sustainable development (Ntukekpo, 1996).
Due to increasing awareness in preventing and controlling spills
in Nigeria, the Clean Nigeria Associates (C.N.A.) was formed in
November 1981. The C.N.A. is a consortium of eleven oil
companies operating in Nigeria, including N.N.P.C. The primary
purpose of establishing the C.N.A is to maintain a capability to
combat spills of liquid hydrocarbons or pollutants in general. The
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) decree No 86 of 1992
was promulgated to protect and sustain our ecosystem. The law
makes EIA compulsory for any major project that may have
adverse effects on the environment (Ntukekpo, 1996; Olagoke,
1996).
The Decree was to control activities that have environmental
impact on the host communities, facilitates the promotion and
implementation of policy, encourage information exchange. It
sought to assess the likely or potential environmental impacts of
proposed activities, including their direct or indirect, cumulative,
short term and long term effects, and to identify the measures
available to mitigate adverse environmental impacts of proposed
activities, and assessment of those measures. The guidelines made
provisions for offshore operations, safety measures, liability and
compensation (Ozekhome, 2001). :
As part of an environmental baseline studies project for the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), sixty coastal and two
hundred riverine/estuarine stations were studied in 1984 and 1985.
Data gathered at these stations were used in describing regional and
site-specific shoreline types. The outer coastline of Nigeria was
divided into five broad categories, and within these categories, the
shoreline has been divided into Environmental Sensitive Index (ESI)
shoreline types. In addition, an ESI scale was developed and applied
for the tidally influenced Bonny/New Calabar mouth and estuary.
The Nigerian federal government has indicated that it is no longer
willing to tolerate oil companies absolving themselves of their
responsibility to reduce pollution. The Federal Government has
noted that future drilling rights will be "closely determined by"
companies’ environmental compliance, in addition to their
submission of an environmental impact assessment for the
proposed site.
In July 2002, the Nigerian government ordered oil companies
operating in the country to comply with the Environmental
Guidelines and Standards for the Oil Industry, published by the
Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the monitoring arm
of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), or risk
paying a fine. The 300-page guidelines provide rules to reduce
pollution and procedures for environmental monitoring.
The Nigerian government has taken action to show it is serious
about enforcing environmental regulations. In March 2003, the
Nigerian subsidiary of Shell was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the
Ijaw tribe for the company's actions in the state of Bayelsa over a
50-year period. A government committee that investigated Shell
ruled that the company was responsible for a number of oil spills
and environmental incidents, including an epidemic in 1993-1994
in which 1,400 people were killed. The government committee
blamed the prevalence of cancer in the region on exposure to the
company's oil spills, noting that Shell continually refused to pay
compensation for these spills, and where it had, the payment was
inadequate.
5.1 Bioremediation
Bioremediation is a technique that may be useful to remove
spilled oil under certain geographic and climatic conditions.
Bioremediation is a proven alternative treatment tool that can be
used to treat certain aerobic oil-contaminated environments.
Typically, it is used as a polishing step after conventional
mechanical cleanup options have been applied. It is a relatively
slow process, requiring weeks to months to effect cleanup. If done
properly,” it can be very cost-effective, although an in-depth
economic analysis has not been conducted to date. It has the
advantage that the toxic hydrocarbon compounds are destroyed
rather than simply moved to another environment.
The two main approaches to oil-spill bioremediation are:
(1) bioaugmentation, in which oil-degrading bacteria are added
to supplement the existing microbial population, and
(2) biostimulation, in which nutrients or other growth-limiting
co-substrates are added to stimulate the growth of
indigenous oil degraders.
5.2 Nigeria-Sat 1 Satellite
A Russian Kosmos rocket blasted off from a military base in
Kazakhstan and boosted the Nigeria Sat! payload into orbit. The
satellite’s launch makes Nigeria, Africa's most populous country,
the continent's fourth nation with a satellite in orbit. Algeria,
Egypt and South Africa also operate Earth satellites. The
Nigerian satellite will join the Disaster Monitoring Constellation,
an international early-warning satellite network transmitting real-
time information about droughts, earthquakes, deforestation and
man-made disasters observable from space. The Federal
Government plans to use the $13 million satellite to also monitor
email traffic. Nigeria has a very serious problem with corruption.
Every day, unscrupulous individuals are siphoning millions out
from our economy. Typically, money is smuggled out of the
country with the aid of people overseas, particularly in America.
Criminals engaged in this illegal activity take up to twenty to
twenty-five million dollars at a time. The Nigeria Sat-1, an Orbit
Satellite for geographical mapping, which the country launched
recently would also help to check the perennial problem of oil
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