reports, Shell Nigeria experienced about 250 oil spills each year.
6 In the early 1990s, when the amount of oil spills was about the same level, Shell Nigeria claimed some 75 per cent of their oil spills resulted from corrosion in older pipelines and other equipment and human failure
Preventing Spills
We can best avoid the environmental and economic effects of oil spills by preventing and containing them in the first place. For more than two decades, EPA's Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasures, or SPCC program, has worked at several hundred thousand oil storage facilities to prevent the discharge of all kinds of oil into the waters of the United States. EPA's approach to preventing oil spills combines planning and enforcement measures. To prevent oil spills, EPA requires owners or operators of certain oil storage facilities to prepare and implement SPCC Plans that detail the facility's spill prevention and control measures. EPA also enforces the oil spill liability and penalty provisions under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which provide incentives to facility owners/operators to take the necessary steps to prevent oil spills. EPA also conducts on-site facility inspections to ensure that facilities take adequate measures to prevent an accidental discharge.
What is oil spillage
An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term often refers to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters. The oil may be a variety of materials, including crude oil, refined petroleum products (such as gasoline or diesel fuel) or by-products, ships' bunkers, oily refuse or oil mixed in waste. Spills take months or even years to clean up. Oil is also released into the environment from natural geologic seeps on the sea floor.[1] Most human-made oil pollution comes from land-based activity, but public attention and regulation has tended to focus most sharply on seagoing oil tankers.[2]
[edit] Prevention
Secondary containment - methods to prevent releases of oil or hydrocarbons into environment. Oil Spill Prevention Containment and Countermeasures (SPCC) program by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
Double hulling - build double hulls into vessels, which reduces the risk and severity of a spill in case of a collision or grounding. Existing single-hull vessels can also be rebuilt to have a double hull.
A US Navy oil spill response team drills with a "Harbour Buster high-speed oil containment system". A sheen is usually dispersed (but not cleaned up) with detergents which makes oil settle to the bottom. Oils that are denser than water, such as Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), can be more difficult to clean as they make the seabed t
[2] Anoliefo G.O., Vwioko D.F., Effects of Spent Lubricating Oil on the Growth of Capsicum annum. L. and Lycopersicon esculetum Miller. Environmental Pollution, (1994) 88: 361 384. [3] Baker, J.M., The Effects of Oil on Plants Physiology, in Cowell, E.B. (ed.), The Ecological Effects of Oil Pollution on Littoral Communities, Applied Science Publishers, London, 1970b, pp. 72 77. [4] Chindah A.C., Braide S.A., The Impact of Oil Spills on the Ecology and Economy of the Niger Delta. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Sustainable Remediation Development Technology held at the Institute of Pollution Studies, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, 2000. [5] Delta State Environmental Protection Agency, Report on the State of the Environment in Delta State. Ministry of Environment, Delta State Government of Nigeria, 1996, 51pp. [6] Department of Petroleum Resources, Annual Reports. Abuja, Department of Petroleum Resources,1997, 191pp. [7] Eboh, E.C., Poverty, Population growth and Environmental Degradation: The Vicious Cycle of Human Misery, in Eboh, E. C., Okoye, C. U., Ayichi, D. (Eds.),
Environmental Degradation and Poverty in the Niger
Delta Region
