Last night on this newscast, you heard Chief Environment Officer Martin Allegria
explaining the stop order he issued against Belize Natural Energy. It forced
the oil company to cease work on a pipeline it was building across the Sittee
River after the Kendall Bridge washout. Allegria said that his office was not
informed about the plan – and with the oil tanks 40 feet form the edge
of the river – there are critical environmental concerns. So on Monday,
the DOE issued a stop order and when BNE would not comply, the DOE went there
with police officers on Tuesday to force them to stop.
But here’s BNE’s side of the story. After trying in vain yesterday,
today we were able to reach Dr. Gilly Canton, the CEO of Belize Natural Energy.
He said that the Department of Environment was invited to see the project proposal
on site on Friday the 6th. June, but the department never showed up. And so,
citing the need for an “immediate solution” – the BNE pushed
ahead with the pipeline project. Canton stressed to us that there was, “no
way his company would put up anything environmentally unsafe” –
explaining that there was no oil in the tanks when the stop order was issued.
All this he explained, because they needed to keep their oil exports going at
the Big Creek Port which BNE’s figures say earns government $400,000 a
day in revenue.
Speaking of broader environmental compliance issues, Canton says that his company
often cannot sit and wait for clearance. Only thing is……jump high
or jump low, it’s the law that projects with environmental implications
must get DOE clearance, which has been a recurring sticking point between the
oil company and its regulator. We’ve seen documents which show that BNE’s
Iguana Creek storage facility still has no approved environmental compliance
plan, among other non complying BNE facilities.
Canton acknowledged that in these, as in the cross-river pipeline, it is often
a case of urgency that cannot wait months for the DOE’s say-so. But now
the river pipeline must wait. Still Canton says they will take it through the
environment process and he is determined to go ahead with the project because
there will not be a permanent bridge replacement at Kendall for another year.
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