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Environmental Analysis
Lab Analysis Demonstrates Severity of Ogoniland Pollution
Scientists from a UK laboratory have analysed over 4,000 air, soil and water samples collected from Ogoniland in the south of Nigeria. The results of the analyses, which were undertaken by ALcontrol Laboratories, have formed a major component of an independent UNEP Environmental Assessment report that sought to measure the extent of the pollution and to define priorities for remediation.
This report makes a valuable contribution towards improving understanding of the issue of oil spills and the environment in Ogoniland and we pledge to work with the government, UNEP and others on the next steps.
The UNEP report was published in August 2011 and shows that pollution from over 50 years of oil operations in the region has penetrated further and deeper than many may have supposed. It suggested that the environmental restoration of Ogoniland could prove to be the world's most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken if contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and important ecosystems such as mangroves are to be brought back to full, productive health.
Background
Ogoniland is a group of four Local Government Areas in the Rivers State of Nigeria. Taken together there are close to a million people living in about 1000 square kilometres. Oil industry operations began in Ogoniland in the late 1950's and the area has since been the subject of many (often tragic) struggles as a result of the political and environmental issues that have occurred.
The two year study of the environmental and public health impacts of oil contamination in Ogoniland is one of the most complex on the ground assessments ever undertaken by UNEP. Conducted at the request of the Federal Government of Nigeria, the work involved desk review, fieldwork and laboratory analysis. As a high profile, politically sensitive project it was extremely important for all environmental analysis to be undertaken by a fully accredited, independent laboratory.
Environmental sampling and analysis Contact Details: ALcontrol Group Head Office
Units 7 & 8 Hawarden Business Park Manor Road, Hawarden, Deeside Flintshire, CH5 3US UK Tel: +44 (0) 1244 528 700
Email:
hawarden.sales@
alcontrol.com Website:
www.alcontrol.com
Following an international competitive bidding process, ALcontrol was chosen to conduct the environmental monitoring work. ALcontrol's Iain Swinton was responsible for the bid and believes that his company's success was the result of several key factors. "Firstly, we were obviously able to provide a financially attractive offer, but importantly," he added, "we were also able to demonstrate a very strong track record in the delivery of a large contract, with a requirement for multiple parameter monitoring at remote locations with difficult access. For example, in the recent past we have conducted sampling and analysis programmes in Lebanon, Gaza, Mongolia, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iraq."
With over 2000 employees in 30 laboratories across 11 European countries supporting a global customer base providing millions of tests per year, ALcontrol is able to offer an enormous variety of tests. ALcontrol's laboratory in Chester, UK, was chosen to analyse the Ogoniland samples because, as a very large ISO 17025 accredited
IET May / June 2012
www.envirotech-online.com
laboratory, it has the capacity to manage a project of this size and complexity.
The analytes examined in the study included those which are commonly required in oil-spill assessment and clean-up work. They included specific groups of hydrocarbons that are either indicative of oil based pollution or represent a significant human health or environmental hazard. The most important of these are BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes) and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were the main target of the air quality investigations. Over the course of the project more than 400 different analytes were tested, however, the most significant was TPH (Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon, mg/kg).
Collected samples were dispatched by courier from Nigeria on a daily basis and analytical results had to be published via the @mis web based reporting tool in the shortest possible time. In some instances, additional sampling had to be undertaken based on the results of the first round, whilst in other cases repeat analyses were requested to reconfirm the findings.
In order to ensure that the study produced representative and credible results, ALcontrol was involved throughout the planning and implementation
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