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    Dead fishes litter Shell, NLNG facilities in Rivers 

    *Dead fishes on the shores of Bonny rivers

    Mkpoikana Udoma

    Port Harcourt — In what is suspected to be another episode of toxic pollution on the Atlantic shorelines of the Niger Delta, dead fishes of different species are now littering the shores of a creek on Bonny Island, Rivers State, near the facilities of two international oil and gas companies, Shell and the Nigeria LNG Limited, NLNG.

    Recall that between April and June 2020, massive records of dead fishes were reported on the Atlantic coastline of the Niger Delta, particularly in Bonny, Andoni, Koluoma, Santana, Odimodi and Akassa.

    The fishes, including species such as micropogonias undulatus, commonly known as Croaker, had died in their numbers, littering the shores of Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states.

    This time, the impacted creek, SweetcrudeReports gathered, lies between the Alpha jetty operated by the Nigeria LNG Limited, NLNG, and Shell Nigeria’s Bonny Oil and Gas Terminal in Bonny, Rivers State.
    Wild birds are on the creek, having a field day eating the dead fishes.
    Although the cause of the incident has not yet been ascertained,  oil sheens and chemical compounds are seen on the water, while some organisations in Bonny have obtained water samples in the area for forensic examination.

    The Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre, YEAC-Nigeria, in a reaction, has condemned the repeated reports of dead fishes on the Bonny shoreline and called for a thorough investigation into the matter.

    Executive Director of YEAC-Nigeria, Mr Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, said it was only substances like crude oil, industrial wastes and toxic chemicals that could kill fishes of different species on the River. ‘This is the second significant incident of dead fishes along the Bonny waterways; the first was in 2020 when it was also reported around the Andoni and Opobo areas.

    “In 2020, the Rivers State government began investigating the matter of dead fishes in the Bonny waterways with some of the dead fishes taken for laboratory testing, but to date, the Rivers State government has not released a report on the dead fishes which could have been implemented and current incident prevented.
    “YEAC-Nigeria calls on the authorities at both the state and federal levels to immediately launch an investigation into this environmental genocide and bring those guilty to justice as soon as possible because the abundance of dead fishes in the vicinity may be an indication of an environmental disaster or pollution from human, company or industrial activities,” Fyneface said,

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