· Lagos to probe tank farm operators over EIA
By Kenneth Jukpor
With the multiplicity of tank farms in Apapa posing an impending disaster to the residents and business persons in the port environment, experts have admonished the Federal Government to explore alternate means of distributing petroleum products, highlighting piping as a viable option.
Despite the fact that an environmental impact assessment has to be done before tank farms are located in an environment in Nigeria, the situation in Apapa has seen hazardous development of such facilities less than 1km away from each other as the tank farm owners allegedly do their reports themselves and submit to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to make payments and get endorsement.
During an exclusive chat with MMS Plus newspaper, the Chairman, Ports Consultative Council (PCC) Otunba Kunle Folarin admonished the government to explore piping as an alternate means to distribute petroleum products to tank farms of operators that would be situated far away from the port environment.
Otunba said; “There must be a procedure for establishing tank farms in the country. Whether the procedure is adequately followed is another issue, but the tank farm owners want to be seen to have followed the procedure without any effort to meet all the details in the procedures. The exposure of tank farms in the Apapa community is a massive threat to lives and commerce in the region and Apapa is a city that has over 2 million people”
He recalled that the 2002 bomb blast at Ikeja Military Cantonment was an environmental issue; “Most people died by drowning as they fled into a canal at Ajao Estate which links Oke Afa in Isolo. Unfortunately, the canal filled with water had been covered by water hyacinth, and as people ran into the supposed ‘bush’, they were being drowned in the water. If such a thing had happen around Apapa or Ajegunle axis, the whole city would have been on fire. It is unfortunate that in most cases human-beings need disaster to call them to order”
Meanwhile, the authenticity of the environmental impact assessment these tank farms in Apapa and Ijegun (Satellite Town) have become a cause for concern and Lagos State Government recently started investigating tank farm operations in these areas, due to what it ascribed to implication for public safety and non-compliance with environmental impact assessment guidelines.
The state government lamented proliferation of oil tank farms in the state, probing tank farm owners as well as residents of the state who had not been obtaining approval before erecting their buildings, a practice which it said, violated the State Urban and Regional Planning and Development Law, 2010.
While the state government, declared a six-month notice in March 2018 to enable all property owners in the state regularize their building approval documents, it warned those interested in building a filling station or tank farm in any part of the state to desist from such unapproved plans because embargo had been placed on it.
On the proliferation of tank farms within the state, the Commissioner for Physical Planning & Urban Development, Mr. Rotimi Ogunleye, said the state government’s decision to embark on the investigation was “to protect residents from fire disasters that might emanate from the tank farms during explosions.”
He explained the decision of the state government to investigate tank farm operation, noting that it “has already embarked on the study. Soon, we will come up with a very comprehensive approach to get everything under control in Lagos.”
He said the ongoing investigation “will address the apprehension often expressed on tank farms in the state. The proliferation of filling stations has made residents express worry over it considering the inflammability of petroleum products.”
The concern of impending fire outbreak and the drastic disaster wouldn’t be there if the nation turns to alternate ways of distributing fuel, especially as one wouldn’t find tank farms clustering the port environment in other climes; the oil majors usually locate their tank farms far away from the port.
According to the International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA) 2002, Environmental Impacts Assessment is an assessment or the analysis of the possible positive or negative impact that a proposed project may have on the environment together consisting of the environmental, social and economic aspects.
EIA is a decision making tool in the study of predicting the effect of a proposed activity/project on the environment. It compares various alternatives for a project and seeks to identify the one which represents the best combination of economic and environmental costs and benefits.
EIA systematically examines both beneficial and adverse consequences of the project and ensures that these effects are taken into account during project design. It helps to identify possible environmental effects of the proposed project, proposes measures to mitigate adverse effects and predicts whether there will be significant adverse environmental effects, even after the mitigation is implemented.
By considering the environmental effects of the project and their mitigation early in the project planning cycle, environmental assessment has many benefits, such as protection of environment, optimum utilization of resources and saving of time and cost of the project.
According to maritime stakeholders in the country, “Apapa is sitting on a keg of gunpowder” and the onus lies on the Federal Government to intervene before a fatal disaster occurs.
Recently, the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of ENL Consortium, Princess (Dr.) Vicky Haastrup on pleaded with the government to address the perilous situation in Apapa with regards to the influx of tank farms.
“Apapa community is in danger, it is not just the roads that are caving-in; there are over sixty tank farms with many having less than 1km distance between them. Apapa has a huge population and it is also an industrial hub. The rationale behind the approval of these tank farms situated in Apapa should be questioned and something has to be done fast. If one tank farm goes into flames in Apapa, the disaster would be catastrophic as the entire community will go on fire. It is imperative for the government to take pro-active measures” she said.
