Environmentalist flags unsigned EIA submitted by ExxonMobil for 5th project

Feb 19, 2023 News

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…urges EPA to restart 60-days public review period

Kaieteur News – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has accepted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by oil major, ExxonMobil for its fifth Stabroek Block project- Uaru. The document however has not been signed by the Consultant, Acorn International, leaving room for possible ramifications.

Environmentalist Simone Mangal-Joly in a letter to Executive Director of the EPA, Kemraj Parsram on Saturday not only brought the issue to his attention, but also urged that the ongoing 60-days review period be restarted as result of the missing signature.

In her letter to Parsram, Mangal-Joly explained, “On January 8, 2023, ExxonMobil, and its consultant, Acorn, jointly published a notice as per Section 11 of the Environmental Protection Act advising the public that an Environmental Impact Assessment was submitted for ExxonMobil’s application for an Environmental Permit for its Uaru offshore oil and gas production floating platform. This notice advises the public that “the EIA/EIS are available on the EPA’s website for download” and that the public has until sixty-days from January 8, 2023, to make written submissions on the Environmental Impact Assessment as they see appropriate.”

She noted that more than two thirds of the 60-day period has elapsed, and the EPA still has not posted the certified EIA on its website for the public to inspect.

“The document presently labelled in the url link as “UARU EIA” bears no specific date, no signed sheet of authorship or ownership, and no clear title page,” the Environmentalist pointed out.

She was keen to note that the posting of an incomplete and unsigned EIA on the government website is a violation of the public’s right to fair consultation and the rule of law.

In fact, Mangal-Joly said in her letter, “It raises a serious question about the transparency and accountability of the process…the government has a responsibility to not only provide complete and accurate information to the public in a timely and accessible manner, but also to guarantee that the information contained in an EIA is attested to by the consultant that prepared the EIA as well as the applicant for the permit, so that these parties may not disavow the contents later.”

As such, she urged that the EPA provide the full and duly certified EIA on its website and restart the 60-day comments period at the new date to which the signed EIA becomes available to the public.

It must be noted that this is not the first EIA accepted by the EPA to which the developer’s and Consultant’s signatures were not attached.

An EIA forms the foundation for a Permit to be granted to a developer by the EPA. The document is intended to clearly outline the risks a project can cause and state measures that will be taken to mitigate or respond to such events. Given the important nature of the document, project developers are required to affix their signature/s to guarantee that they not only accept the environmental study, but more importantly, its findings and assurances for response activities. By attaching their signatures, it legally ties the company to accept liabilities caused as a result of the listed impacts, likely to be caused.

However, by refusing to sign these studies, liabilities are transferred to the Consultant that prepared the project, whose signatures are attached to the document. This is according to Former Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams.

Adams in a previous interview explained to this publication that while he was heading the EPA, ExxonMobil was mandated to attach its signatures to the EIA, as this is the global practice.

He explained that as Head of the regulator body, Exxon had submitted an EIA which he refused to accept, as it was not signed.

“I packed up the stuff and I said I am not accepting it without your signature, and what he (Former Country Manager, Rod Henson) told me, he said well you know that’s the way that the EPA does it, which is for Liza One, because I wasn’t there for Liza One. So I said I really don’t care how the EPA has been doing it and I said you know that you can’t do this in the United States for example, and he said yes Vince I know that, but this is the way that they want it, and I said this is not the way that I want it so you better change it. I packed up the volumes in a box, sent it back to him and immediately he signed it for Exxon and sent it back,” Dr. Adams shared.

This newspaper was unable to verify that the signature of the oil company was attached to the Liza Two EIA; however, the impact study for its third project, Payara, was signed by Exxon’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEGPL) Country Manager, Alistair Routledge in July 2020.

The issue of the developer’s signature being absent on this critical document was first highlighted by an attorney, Elizabeth Hughes, who had made her views public at a consultation hosted by EEPGL on the proposed Gas-to-Energy project.

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• EIA, Environmentalist, EPA, Mangal-Joly, unsigned

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