– As remediation of heavily polluted sites begin soon
Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project has announced plans to carry out an health audit on people living in oil impacted areas communities, in order to ascertain the prevalence of illnesses in Ogoniland, as recommended by the United Nations Environment Programme.
Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Dr. Fedinard Giadom, disclosed this in an event to mark 2022 World Environment Day in Bori, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Giadom, who is an envrionmental geologist, explained that all over the world anywhere there is an oil spill, there are certain debilitating diseases usually associated with chronic, prolonged exposure to hydrocarbons.
He added that the health audit was imperative, in compliance with the recommendations of UNEP Report to carry out an health study to decipher the nature and extent of the impact of the age-long contamination of Ogoni communities by hydrocarbons.
“The UNEP Report recommended that HYPREP should carry out public health studies and should go into public health registries, so that we can understand the trend of prevalent diseases in these communities.
“All over the world, any place there is an oil spill, there are certain debilitating conditions or certain diseases that are associated with chronic, prolonged exposure to this petroleum hydrocarbon concern. And these conditions present themselves in a wide spectrum from low-end impacts to high-end impacts.
“The low-end impacts arise from irritability (anger, hormonal imbalance, miscarriage) while the high-end impact will result in things like cancer.
“It is as a result of this that HYRPEP has also moved to begin the process of entering into our communities to interact with the people, take data, and gather information on the kind of disease conditions that are prevalent in our communities so we will find lasting solutions to these.”
The HYPREP boss urged the people of Ogoni to provide the right information to the health personnel when the health audit began, in order to aide them make informed decisions on the mater.
“We have employed the services of the institute of research both in Nigeria and abroad. We also intend to help to upgrade the medical centres and hospitals that are around Ogoni. We shall also build some medical facilities. As of today, we are in the process of acquiring land to start building a hospital in Tai LGA.
“We are also engaging the Ogoni Medical doctors to be part of the study. So, in the coming days, people will come to the communities to ask about your medical conditions and we expect that when they come, you give them the right information that will enable them to make informed Decisions on helping you on these matters.”
The HYPREP Coordinator also announced that remediation of complex sites would began within the month, saying that characterization of complex sites has begun.
“We have toed a significant path on the low-risk sites, and now is the time for us to commence activities moving into the medium and high-risk sites. As of today, we have started characterizing the high-risk sites which are known as complex sites. This is a process to determine the exact quantity and the exact position of contaminants.
“We have started to characterize the medium and high-risks impacted site at Korokoro, in Tai local government area.”
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