Oil spill threats require "absolute quick response:" Senator Hulse

"If we don't have an absolute quick response, then we might as well just don't talk petroleum."

These are the comments of Senator Godwin Hulse, who on Tuesday night, July 2, pointed out that whereas there are concerns over plans for petroleum exploration offshore Belize on risks that an accident could devastate the world-famous coral reef, "We need to declare that our reef is at risk from an oil spill every week of the year."

According to the private sector senator, "For the last 50 years, there is a tanker coming through that reef bringing fuel into Belize."

Belize imports fuel, and since Belize Natural Energy also exports crude "through the reef," the risks of a spill already exist.

Official information published by the Ministry of Finance indicates Belize imported 32,200,658.7 million barrels of fuel in 2009. The Statistical Institute of Belize has indicated that petroleum exports in 2009 were in excess of 50 million gallons.

"The risk of a tanker breaking up, running aground or so is always there," said Hulse. "We could have the Exxon-Valdez kind of catastrophe."

Transshipment through the Gulf of Amatique, Honduras, also poses added risks: "Furthermore, there is also the risk from the tankers that pass beyond our waters - from Venezuela all the way up to the United States, from Guatemala, from Honduras that could also break up [in] the Gulf of Amatique and damage our reef. So I would like to suggest, that while we focus on ourselves here and how we would protect from damage we cause, that two things need to happen."

The first, he said, is for the Government of Belize, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to convene a meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean to look at the global picture to explore a global mechanism, perhaps further to the UN or some other international agency, that could not only do inspection but also provide mitigation and relief work.

"We are vulnerable any way you take it, and that is not going to stop unless you decide to move fuel over land and stop tankers from passing through our reef," he commented.

Perhaps Belizeans should be looking at pushing government not for an only international position, but also for a domestic position to have an absolute quick response.

"If we don't have an absolute quick response, then we might as well just don't talk petroleum. But I don't think we want to do that," he went on to say.

"Let's not fool ourselves," said Senator Hulse. "We don't have to bore out there to have a disaster. [The risk] is there - it's there whether we are doing it on land, whether we are doing it in a protected area or whether we are doing it offshore - it is there!"

It is a quick response that Belize needs to push for now and then "a sober addressing of the situation," he added.

He also cautioned against corruption: "What we have to do - even if it is on land - is to make sure nobody is in anybody's pocket; that we have all the provisions in place; everything intact, and then I think we could take that risk…."

Audrey Matura-Shepherd, attorney, vice president of Oceana in Belize and a spokesperson of the Belize Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage, has informed that their coalition would meet Wednesday, July 7, with Minister of Natural Resources/Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega.

She agreed with Senator Hulse that those risks from transportation do exist, and it is also something that concerns the Coalition. If drilling ever happens on or near the reef, then the country is increasing those risks, she noted.

"We can't even get [the Government] to comply with section 11 [of the Petroleum Act], in deciding who gets contracts; now we can expect them to regulate an industry that is so high risk?" she questioned.

She pointed out that the Environmental Pollution Control Board, required in existing law, has not been set up and the government department charged with monitoring does not even have a boat.

Three weeks ago, on June 15, Director of Geology and Petroleum, Andre Cho, said that the government has drafted regulations to establish a Common Fund, which will be for monies to address an oil spill. Those regs should be passed, he said, this year.

Cho noted that in the petroleum industry, the operator is responsible first and foremost. In the case of the only existing producer, Belize Natural Energy (BNE), Cho noted that BNE should immediately apply the company's oil spill contingency plan. The Government will oversee it, and if they [BNE] are not handling it properly, the Department of Environment (DOE) would apply its plan. Financing such efforts is the purpose of the Common Fund - which we note does not yet exist, according to the government rep.

Chief Environmental Officer, Martin Alegria, said that Belize does have a national emergency plan, specifically targeting oil spills: "We call it NEPPOS for short."

That plan, The National Emergency Preparedness Plan for OilSpills (NEPPOS), was finalized in 1996 but revised in 2005, said Alegria, with the assistance of CDERA, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency, now CDEMA: the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.

That NEPPOS, said Alegria, addresses both land and sea potential oil spills: "In the land aspect, we at DOE have responded to about four or five oil spills." The most recent one he reported was in Orange Walk with a crude tanker that had an accident while going over a speed bump. He also noted another on the Coastal Road, which was a spill of Bunker C fuel that was being transported to the Citrus Company of Belize. [This had made nearby water supplies temporarily undrinkable.]

Another spill had happened, Alegria said, near the police station at Sandhill when a tanker negotiating a steep curve flipped over. The DOE has had to implement NEPPOS on land but not on sea, he noted.

The Chief Environmental Officer pointed out that there are three tiers for the oil spill response plan (as depicted in the accompanying chart). The first tier, he said, is for 10,000 gallons or less - and Belize has the capability to respond to such a spill, Alegria told us. For 100,000 gallons or more, he said, Belize needs outside help.

"The worst case scenario of tier 3 [is] exactly what is happening in Gulf [of Mexico with the BP incident]," said Alegria, noting that BNE has arrangements with foreign counterparts with whom they have contracts to assist in responding to a major spill.

"There are current risks," he asserted, pointing to imports by Esso Belize of refined products, as well as exports from BNE of crude across Belize's territorial waters, twice a month, as Cho indicated.

"There is a high risk there, if we were not and are not on top of monitoring aspects and putting in minimum standards," the Chief Environmental Officer said.

If you look at the global picture for the last five to seven years, said Alegria, the first two to three incidents he would pick "right off the bat" were not caused by exploration but by transportation accidents. "The famous Exxon-Valdez was transportation."

"That is an issue that we have not lost sight of," he furthermore commented. "It is a reality that exists right now, and we are looking at ways of improving the monitoring aspects of it. And if there [are] any such spills, as Andre mentioned, we will not only leave it for BNE, or Esso, or Petrofuel, or whoever is the consignee of the product. We will need to be there [in] a supervisory role to ensure that things are done the way they should be done."

The Disaster Management and Contingency Plan, published by the DOE, notes that: "In order to respond rapidly and successfully to a spill, personnel responsible for containing and cleaning up the spill must know the steps that need to be followed during and after the spill."

We note that based on the categorizations provided in that document, the oil spill plan for offshore (marine) kicks in for a spill of 1,000 gallons or more. The company is responsible for handling - on its own - 10 times as big a spill offshore than it is responsible for handling onshore - 1,000 gallons onshore versus 10,000 gallons offshore. Beyond those levels, the Government and external partners are required to be called in for the clean-up efforts.

(Story based on the July 6, 2010, edition of "The Adele Ramos Show," as well as the June 15, 2010 edition.)

Amandala