There is something wrong with the decision making process at the top in the island of Nevis. Whichever party is in power the fact is that two or three men take decisions in secret without reference to the people, sometimes in matters of which they are completely or comparatively ignorant. The people are told of these deals after they have been made. Details considered to reflect badly on the Administration are concealed. Those who lead Nevis are insufficiently conversant with the wiles of foreign commerce, and, whatever the reasons, do not provide themselves with the back ground knowledge necessary for a proper understanding of the propositions put to them. Either the contract is made and Nevis is stuck with it, or public statements are issued about the great advantages of the intended plan of action from which it is difficult for politicians without loss of face, to retreat when awkward facts appear which do not support the wisdom of the plan.
In 2005, Real Estate hustlers trading as Newfound persuaded the then CCM Administration to sell them 600 acres of Nevis prime land, and to give them substantial far reaching concessions. We were told that we would get a 150 room luxury hotel with golf course and several hundred villas. Newfound was at that time insolvent, and had only one unfinished development to its name. Why did the Administration do business with such a company? Their accounts would have shown that they could not carry out their obligations. The huge concessions only saw light of day after the Administration changed.
Our Governments declare that they are open and transparent. This is not so. If they were they would have a better chance of avoiding serious mistakes.
Responses to my articles on the Fuel Storage depot are of the type:
1. It’s insane
2. You don’t think it will actually happen do you?, and
3. That of the Government supporting newspaper, the Leewards Times: ‘The Leewards is of the view that the NIA led by the NRP will not bring or allow a project in Nevis that will have dire consequences for its people’.
It is my premise that the NIA swallowed without serious investigation and analysis the sales talk of the Canadian Global Investment officials. That talk was on display at the September 25th 2012 Public Meeting where C Global’s spokesman told us that there would be no pollution from the facility and if there was any oil spill at sea it would be measurable in bottles. All available evidence shows that this is wrong.
The NIA’s wish to diversify the economy and to encourage businesses that provide jobs is something all would agree to. But before giving blanket approval to any investment in Nevis, a judgement has to be made concerning the overall benefits or harm. I pointed out some of the risks in my first two articles and from the defensive nature of the response in the Leewards it seems clear that the NIA was not aware of the danger of harm and damage to the island, that no one had assessed the risks because no one had taken the trouble to find out what they were.
Mr. Leewards invites me to consider the safety record of the two existing Nevis oil storage terminals. We have to have these very small storage tanks for our every day use. In size relative to the proposed facility they rate as a bucket of water to a lake.
Unavailable until recently, the ‘Supplement to the Preliminary Plan for Environmental Impact Assessment’ (EIA) prepared by Source Environmental Sciences Inc. of Houston Texas, is now on the Web. It is produced for American Tank and Vessel Inc which we are told by C Global is the Company that will build the terminal. This (draft) EIA discusses, among other things, air quality, storage tank emissions, vessel loading emissions, storm water, spill control, waste water control, impacts and controls for Marine vessels, spill scenarios and hazardous materials. This document shows that:
The facility will store diesel, gasoline and bunker C fuel oil in 68 tanks of various sizes. There will be 18 x 500,000 barrel tanks, 12 x 250,000 barrel tanks and 38 tanks of various smaller capacity. The largest tanks are 70 feet high and have a diameter of 240 feet.
Total capacity of the tanks: Diesel: 6.5 million barrels
Gasoline: 6.5 “ “
Bunker C: 920,000 barrels
At 42 gallons per barrel, a 500,000 barrel tank contains 21 millions gallons, and the facility’s Total Capacity in gallons is 584,640,000.
Gasoline is, by far, the most volatile fuel of the three and as such the overwhelming majority of emissions will be from gasoline. For emissions read vapour, or such part of the gasoline that evaporates into the air, and which, if it comes your way, you will breath in. Storage tank emissions occur from evaporation inside the tank which can escape from seals and fittings throughout the tank. Calculated annual emissions from one 500,000 tank is 6888.77 pounds, and from one 250,000 barrel tank 4776 pounds.
The majority of emissions will be ship loading. These are calculated as a maximum of 103037 pounds (46 tons) per day.
The loading rate for the 500,000 barrel tanks is 50,000 barrels per hour. Estimated 24 turnovers of product in the tanks per year. The total tank loss emissions will be 57.83 tons per year.
The maximum ship loading emissions has already been given as 46 tons per day, but this was based upon loading of petroleum only. Calculations for the year include both petroleum and diesel loading.
Annual ship loading emissions are 9402 tons and of this tonnage 9402 + 57.83 we are interested, or should be, in what is poisonous. This includes benzene at 283 tons per year and Toluene at 1591 tons per year.
Benzene is the most toxic. It increases the risk of cancer and other illnesses. It is a notorious cause of bone marrow failure. Studies have linked benzene exposure in the mere parts per billion range to terminal leukemia, Hodgkins Lymphoma and other blood and immune system diseases with 5-15 years of exposure. The US Department of Health classifies benzene as a human carcinogen and the American Petroleum Institute declares ‘It is generally considered that the only absolutely safe concentration for benzene is zero’.
The US Environmental Protection Agency requires that spills or releases into the environment of 10 pounds or more of benzene be reported. Our facility proposes to discharge 283 tons or 633,920 pounds every year of this poison into our clean, fresh, sea air.
Water and soil contamination are also important pathways of concern for transmission of benzene. In the US alone, approximately 100,000 sites have soil or groundwater contaminated with benzene.
The EIA, the part subject of this article, has the following about spillages at sea: ‘In the event of a large spill the prevailing currents would take the oil along the South shore of Nevis and West North West into the Caribbean Sea. Fuel would eventually be deposited on several shorelines including the Western shore of Nevis and the South Western shores of St. Kitts. Fishing would be unaffected along the Northern and Eastern coasts of Nevis… Depending on the magnitude of the spill both inshore and offshore fishing along the Western coasts of Nevis and St. Kitts would be negatively affected.’
I hope that everyone has read that important article in The Observer of January 4th by Felix Redmill. In an understated fashion he has, as a consultant in safety engineering and management, produced a devastating expert critique of the inability of Nevis, on any level, to assess, demand or control anything, in particular safe procedures, at the proposed facility and the inadequacy and irrelevance of baseless assurances from Nevis’ political leaders or the proposed facility’s representatives. He is too polite to say so directly, but his message is that Government has no business taking risks of this nature on behalf of the people for whom it is responsible.
The Premier’s New Year’s message included: ‘The Fuel Storage project creating some 300 jobs during construction and some 200 permanent jobs will move forward’. Should he win his election, is he really going to allow this terminal, in spite of all the evidence? In the future Mr. Parry would rightly or wrongly be blamed for the rise in cancers, for any accident and for the change in the smell of our island. I cannot believe that as his legacy he would wish to incur this odium.
Sometimes, mistakes have to be admitted before they become calamities. And electorally the sooner the better for Mr. Parry’s party. Bizarely Deli Caines the Premier’s Press Secretary writes on a blog, ‘What does the election have to do with the oil storage plant?’ The answer is that at present a vote for NRP is a vote for an oil terminal. Many will have read and absorbed the evidence and will consider that anything has to be better than this giant oil depot which will take over their lives and from which there will be no escape.
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