The ‘Shell to Sea’ campaign is still very much a national issue, not just a local one, was the message heard at a public information evening hosted on Wednesday by the Clare Shell to Sea group. Countering allegations that their campaign is a case of NIMBYism, the group emphasised that if the Corrib Gas Project is allowed to go ahead in its current form, it will set a precedent for similar projects to be undertaken in other parts of the country. Stating that while the legal campaign against the project is ongoing, but alluding to the sometimes slow workings of the legal process, one campaigner said that the protests must continue on the Erris Peninsula, in order to delay the project enough so ‘justice can catch up.’
Introducing the meeting, Fiona Wheeler, chairing the event, told a packed auditorium at the Glór Theatre in Ennis, Co. Clare that the Shell campaign shared a lot of common ground with the ‘Save Tara’ movement to have the M3 rerouted from its route through the Tara-Skryne Valley. According to Bob Wilson of the Clare group, included among the issues uniting the campaigns are: the fact that both involve the laying down of infrastructure, a pipeline in Mayo and motorway in Meath, along contentious routes; that the approval of these routes was fast-tracked; and there were alternatives to both but these weren’t pursued with any great vigour.
The assembled members of the public were shown a short documentary which followed the recent experiences of Willie Corduff, one of the five members of the Rossport Five, jailed in 2005 for refusing to obey a temporary court injunction forbidding them to interfere with work being undertaken by on their land, who was this year awarded The Goldman Environmental Prize. According to Corduff, it was public pressure that caused Shell to ask their lawyers for the injunction which the men were in breach of to be lifted, which led to their release, in September 2005. He believes that sustained public pressure can eventually lead to the alteration of the Corrib Gas line’s project, if not its cancellation altogether.
Having taken the opportunity to note the presence of a plainclothes Garda among the audience, and announcing that this was a ‘grave insult’ to the campaign group, making them feel they were being treated as ‘a subversive group’, the chairperson then introduced the main speaker of the evening, John Monaghan, an engineer neighbour of Mr Corduff and active campaigner against the project.
Mr Monaghan outlined what the campaign group are doing at the moment; why they are doing it; and the possible future courses of action for the group. He mentioned similarities between their movement and that of Tara, observing that in both instances more direct and less destructive alternative routes were never properly considered by those in charge of the respective projects. Airing his belief that ‘oil companies feel they can simply stroll through’ local communities, he surmised that his group’s main objection to the project was that it is unique and experimental from engineering, societal and legal points of view.
Outlining the engineering processes at work in the pumping of the gas onshore, Mr Monaghan noted that in the Environmental Impact Statement for the project stated that inland gas refining ‘goes against international standard practice.’ He said that one of his group’s main objections to the project was with its health and safety aspect, in particular with regard to the high pressures that the gas will be pumped inland, and the unacceptable risks of death or serious injury this high-pressure posed to the public. He noted that the proposed pressure of untreated gas in the Corrib pipeline is 144 bar, contrasting this with the maximum pressure Bord Gáis are allowed to pump their treated gas, which is 88 bar. He recalled that while Shell had attempted to ease concerns about the high pressure by highlighting the extra thickness of their piping, he drew attention to a report in which it was concluded that this extra thickness adds greater weight to the pipe structure which in turn leads to a greater chance of subsidence, which in turn leads to an increased risk of cracks and explosions. As well as mentioning health and environmental concerns arising from the toxic chemicals added to the gas during the refining process, such as possible contamination of the local water supply, Mr Monaghan also accused Shell of not following industry best practice which states that gas pumped at high pressures must be routed at certain minimum distances away from dwellings.
A charge was levelled at the government by the group of neglecting the rights of the local community around Bellanaboy – behaviour that would be acceptable of a private oil company, but totally lacking on the part of the government, whose duty it is to protect its citizens. The group called it ‘perverse’ that the Department of Marine is advertising for exploration off other parts of the west of Ireland. They fear that such exploration projects, while not only, in their eyes, giving away Ireland’s natural resources to private interests, could lead other communities to become at risk to some of the dangers outlined by Mr Monaghan.
Summing up the reasons for their opposition, the protesters feel that the decision to process the gas inland, with the attendant higher risk to the local population, was taken purely on the grounds of economics. They have no intention of stopping their campaign to delay the project. They believe that the Corrib Gas project has already set itself as a unique one in the manner in which Compulsory Purchase Orders were granted, from a health and safety perspective, and the fact that the Irish people, through the government, have no stake in the ownership of the project. While the aim of the group is to halt the project in its current form, they would accept the project if the gas was treated of shore. With regard to the influx of jobs to the sparsely populated region, the group estimate, from plans seen by them that the onshore refinery will only provide 27 permanent jobs, to people who will not necessarily be from the area.
Mr Monaghan commented that, ‘If this was in Nigeria, they’d shoot us.’ While the campaigners can be safe in the knowledge that such tactics won’t be adopted by those opposed to their cause in this country, they have vowed to continue their campaign in Mayo and elsewhere irrespective of the obstacles they encounter.
