AT a meeting at Bluff National Golf Club on Thursday, 31 July, local environmentalists bared their fury at the proposed offshore oil and gas exploration by ExxonMobil.
The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) and Earthlife Africa, Durban met with representatives from EXXON Mobil Exploration and Production South Africa Limited (EMEPSAL) and environmental consultants from Environmental Resources Management (ERM).
Last year EMEPSAL applied for the right to explore for oil and gas reserves off the east coast of South Africa in the deep water Durban exploration area, stretching from Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape to Durban.
The activists believe the environmental consultancy, ERM, failed to adequately notify the public of the proposal. Only two public meetings with a restricted attendance of 20 community members per meeting, were held by ERM. “This project will impact millions of people and they think meeting with 40 community members is adequate engagement,” said SDCEA intern, Tristan Ballard.
SDCEA co-ordinator, Desmond D’Sa added: “They did not advertise on radio or in the hundreds of local newspapers, and they didn’t translate their materials into isiZulu, Xhosa and other common languages.”
The assembled group said other concerns they raised, including greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on marine animals, were left ignored or incompetently answered. “ExxonMobil’s response to the points of concern raised by SDCEA and Earthlife were completely inadequate,” said Earthlife’s Alice Thomson.
“Overall there was a strong feeling that the ExxonMobil and ERM representatives were there not to meaningfully address questions and concerns – as required by the Petroleum Agency of South Africa – but instead to repeat word-for-word the vague statements from the initial environmental assessment,” said Ballard.
