The federal government has expressed its commitment to the Ogoni Clean-up exercise as the Minister of Environment, Surveyor Suleiman Hassan Zarma is leading members of HYPREP’s Governing Council as well as other senior stakeholders currently on a working visits to five sites in the United Kingdom , as part of a series of international site visits.
The visit is facilitated by the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) to gather international experience and best practice relative to the clean-up of large-scale contaminated sites.
Experts have said that the restoration of Ogoniland initiated by the federal government of Nigeria could prove to be the world’s most complex and longest oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) assessed the extent and severity of the contamination in 2011 and found severe and widespread contamination due to oil production spanning several decades. The Federal Government of Nigeria has committed to follow the United Nations Environment Programme’s recommendations.
President Muhammadu Buhari on assumption of office in 2015, underscored his resolve to restore livelihood in the oil-contaminated Ogoniland, by creating the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), a dedicated institution to manage the clean-up process under the oversight of the Federal Ministry of Environment.
In addition, the Biogénie’s Redhill soil treatment facility in South East England operates at a larger scale and can accept a wider range of types of waste. It also acts as the main treatment facility for London and the South East.
Biogénie’s facilities treat soil which would otherwise be disposed of as hazardous waste. The cleaned-up soil is re-used for restoration and landscaping, demonstrating how a treatment facility can operate as a regional hub to accept hydrocarbon-impacted soils from a number of sites. The Redhill facility also shows how decontamination processes used at other sites can be scaled up.
According to him, the visit will be an opportunity for the delegation to visit Coed Darcy, one of the largest regeneration projects in the United Kingdom. It was formerly occupied by the BP Llandarcy Oil Refinery until operations ceased in the mid-80s. St. Modwen is currently working with Atkins to clean up and redevelop the site in a sustainable way. By 2027, this redeveloped site will be transformed into a new £1.2 billion urban village that will house around 10,000 people.
“With a legacy of coal mining, iron works, and chemical works, Chesterfield’s former Avenue Coking Works in the East Midlands is widely regarded as one of the most heavily contaminated industrial sites in Europe.
This site offers an opportunity for HYPREP’s Governing Council to witness land that was redeveloped. Around three-quarters of the site were restored for open space, community and ecological uses, with the remainder being used for residential and commercial development.
