Guyana’s EPA does it again

Aug 13, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Every citizen must be wondering whether this country’s EPA is Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency or the Exxon Protection Agency. Because what the local EPA is doing is definitely not in Guyana’s interest but heavily skewed to that of Exxon’s. The latest came in the stunning news that “ExxonMobil gears for new 12-well drilling campaign in Canje Block -gets exemption from doing Environmental Impact Assessment -EPA” (KN August 11). Clearly, there is no stopping Exxon in getting its way with whatever the company wants to do with Guyana and its oil, and in this, the leaders of Exxon could not have asked for a better aider and abettor than our own EPA.
Let us say a few things before proceeding further. Guyana’s EPA withdrew, for all intents and purposes got rid of, its more updated 2020 guidelines, rather abruptly and mysteriously, and replaced those with ones that are from twenty years ago. The objective was that such a burdensome obstacle should not stand in the way of Exxon, so to the dustbin it went. Similarly, the only time that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has any relevance, and need for implementation, is when small Guyanese and their businesses come under the EPA radar. For whenever Exxon is engaged in much larger projects, and more dangerous ones, one rationale after another is found to give the gargantuan foreign company what is nothing but total clearance, without any whiff of serious scrutiny via demands for an EIA of substance. Since this has now become the norm when Exxon is involved, it might be better to cease the sham and do away with the EPA altogether, and put the people there out of their misery.
We say it is better for influential leaders in the PPP Government to scrub the shame from their faces, than to subject the nation’s EPA to this continuing embarrassment that furnishes evidence of its complete impotency. For when this joke of an Agency continues to function this way, it is nothing more than a politically directed body that is coerced to operate in this manner, while humiliating all Guyanese. If the EPA must be kept for the sake of appearance, then our political leaders should be honest enough (a problem proposition) and do the right thing. That is, come out of the shadows, cast off the cloak of concerns about environmental contamination and give Exxon carte blanche to do as it pleases, which it is doing anyway, approval or not, EPA or no EPA.
The gas flaring from the wellhead continues and as our article points out, drilling has been given the go ahead, and not for a tiny handful of blocks, but a dozen of them. This would be one long comedy hour in Guyana, if the surrounding issues were not so potentially destructive to the future prospects of this country, its marine assets, its coastal areas, and the healthy and productive existence of citizens in both spaces. What is instructive is what has to be this farce on how Guyana’s EPA goes about delivering on its sensitive and all-important mandate.
First, according to public notice, the agency asserted that “the project will not significantly affect the environment” and which led to the issuance of an exemption from any EIA requirement. The EPA, however, was slick enough to accompany the exemption with the qualifier that “this is in no way an indication of approval for the project.” Then, semantics aside, we beg these questions: if not approval/clearance, then why issue the exemption for the project in the first place? Why waive what is an absolutely necessary first step? And when would any such exercise be done, when the project is over, and it is too late for preventative measures? To maintain this pretense of doing something, the EPA then went into overdrive with a platter of current buzzwords, which are the hallmarks of corporate speak. The following extracts should relay the nature of the game being played by our politically manipulated EPA: “sound environmental management” and “specific mitigation measures” and “environmentally sound and sustainable manner.”
Generally, they could mean much. Specific to Guyana and Exxon, they ring hollow, mean absolutely nothing. Get used to it, Guyana.

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