Chevron rig fire off Nigeria polluting coastal water sources

Yenagoa, Nigeria (IRIN) – Nigeria’s Bayelsa State government said yesterday it would speed up the release of money over the next two weeks to help hundreds of thousands of villagers affected by a Chevron off-shore oil spill in January. The affected areas are Kolo Ama I and II, Akasa, Sanagana, Fish Town, Fropa, Ekeni, Ezetu and Lobia – all in Bayelsa State, and with a combined population of some 500,000. “We and the Bayelsa Ministry of Health are asking for seven million naira [US$44,000] to enable us to make an initial dispatch of urgently needed relief items like water to the affected people and also carry out a damage impact assessment,” said Igwe Napoleon, the Bayelsa State branch secretary of the Nigeria Red Cross, on 3 February. […] Communities in Bayelsa State say they are feeling the effects of the spillage – inhaling gases from the burning rig, and having to put up with polluted drinking water and fish. “There is evidence that fish have died and that is the mainstay of the people,” said Saraki. Preye Brown, branch chairman of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, who lives in the area, said the entire swamp forest was now covered by polluted water, affecting fish breeding grounds. “Therefore, I am calling for the government to carry out temporary relocation of the indigenes until everything subsides. The only source of drinking water in Kolo Ama and neighboring communities is now polluted; the indigenes have to depend on sachet water which is expensive,” he said. […] Even though no one has been reported hospitalized as a result of the fire so far, said Igwe Napoleon, “there are cases of coughing and eye irritation all over the area, which is a result of the gases released into the air by the inferno.”

Bayelsa State to speed up aid for oil-spill victims