Health & Safety Issues
"It is the right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being" -
Aarhus Convention 1998
"It is a basic human right that everyone should have clean air and clean water. This is how it has been around here since time began. ..Someday I would like to have children without having to worry that the air that I breathe and the water I drink could be harming them before they are even born." -
Siobhán McDonnell, Bunowna
Shells Health & Safety
"I don't think any company will introduce expensive safety measures unless they have to" -
Christy Loftus, Shell's communication officer in Mayo.
High risk of explosions: The Refinery:
Because it is a Seveso site, large quantities of dangerous and flammable materials will be stored onsite. In his submission to the EPA oral hearing on the IPPC license Captain Dave Aldridge, a retired army engineer stated “I believe that the proposal to store 3627 Tons for Methanol at Ballinaboy in close proximity to houses and release upwards of 1800 tons per year into the environment could lead to another Bhopal here in County Mayo.”
The Pipeline:
One of the most problematic components of the Corrib Project has been the upstream pipeline. The upstream pipeline is that part of the pipe that would carry unprocessed gas from the landfall (where the gas pipeline hits land) to the refinery at Bellanaboy. The pipeline was scheduled to travel from the landfall at Glengad on Broadhaven Bay, across the estuary, through the village of Rossport, to the refinery site at Bellanaboy. The planned pipeline route brought it under public roads and families' laneways, and within 70m of many homes in Rossport Village. The pipeline was designed to carry raw, unprocessed gas at a huge pressure of 345 bar. The nature of the gas in its raw form increased the danger of blockages from condensed materials present in the unprocessed gas.
In November 2005 the Centre for Public Enquiry (CPI) published a report on the Corrib Project entitiled the Great Corrib Gas Controversy. As part of the report the CPI commissioned an independent analysis of the pipeline which was done by Richard Kuprewicz of Accufacts Inc. The report found the initial “route of the pipeline…[to be] unacceptable because of its proximity to people and dwellings,” and that “The pipeline’s uniquely large rupture impact zone with high fatalities raise[d] many questions about the appropriateness of the current proposals and QRA (qualitative risk assessment) approaches.”
ADVANTICA REPORT - the reality -PRESSURE AND PROXIMITY (Table D8 - page 99)
A full bore rupture on a 20" pipeline at the reduced maximum pressure of 144 bar (down from the current 345 bar worst case scenario) would have the following impact on houses and people;
- any house within 80 metres will be burned
- any house up to 166 metres could be burned
- any person within 57 metres will be killed
- any person up to 203 metres could be killed
Advantica will only stand by their calculations up to 120 bar (short of the maximum proposed) and the above estimates are based on one experiment conducted at just 60 bar.
The closest inhabited houses in Rossport are barely 70 metres from the pipeline, and anyone travelling the road will be from 30 metres down to 1.2 metres from the pipeline at any given time!
Compare these figures to gas distribution pipes in urban areas. The maximum pressure in a typical ½" domestic gas pipe is 5 bar, and in the event of a leak all buildings within 500 metres are evacuated.
Previous Minister for Natural Resources Noel Dempsey publicly stated on 3rd May 2006 that any person 3 metres from a 144 bar gas pipeline would be perfectly safe in the case of an explosion!
In August 2000 a pipeline ruptured in Carlsbad, New Mexico, incinerating an unfortunate family of twelve camping 230 metres away, and fire services could not get within 1.2 kilometres (1200 metres) because of the intense radiated heat! The pressure was 46 bar
