Today, Mr. D’sa (my boss from SDCEA) invited me to attend another meeting with him. This was the Sapref Environmental Performance Review. In a nutshell, this meeting was part of the process that Sapref (which is a joint venture of BP and Shell oil refineries) must follow in order to renew their permit to essentially pollute in the area. There were city officials, Sapref officials, NGOs like SDCEA (for whom I intern) and groundWork, and a few select community members present at the meeting.
To begin with, I found out only today that Sapref is in fact the biggest refinery in South Africa. I always thought Engen, which is seen outside my room window, was larger than Sapref, but apparently not. Sapref processes up to 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day! Imagine that and now add Engen’s refining and all the other industries’ contributions!
This is Sapref (BP and Shell South African Petroleum Refineries.) The green land to the right was the old Durban International Airport site. Imagine the first impression one gets looking out the airplane window!
One important point to note regarding this meeting is that first Mr. D’sa is well known, even by those he hasn’t met just yet. Next is that although I knew there were high levels of benzene being released into the atmosphere by these refineries, I never grasped the gravity of the issue until the Sapref official talked about benzene urine tests for their workers. Obviously one would not test for this one chemical if it wasn’t that prevalent and problematic.Also, I found it highly ironic (and Mr. D’sa noticed as well and made a valid point regarding it) was that in terms of community initiatives taken by Sapref, there was nothing relating to educating or sponsoring asthma clinics or anything related to teaching about pollution and its impact on health. Rather Sapref demonstrated pride in funding for HIV programs and science laboratories. Mr. D’sa argued this point by reminding Sapref about the health study they funded in 2006 in collaboration with Engen and Mondi to assess the impact of pollution on respiratory problems in the community members. This study concluded that the pollution in the area did in fact contribute to the severe respiratory illnesses in the area, and yet here is Sapref choosing HIV over asthma as an issue to help resolve. According to a Sapref official, when they asked the health clinics, which issues needed assistance and were prevalent, the asthma issue was suggested but “to a less extent” than issues such as HIV, pregnant mothers, child care, etc. This is absolutely crap! Ask anyone in the south Durban basin, and they shall tell you that asthma and respiratory illnesses should be addressed first. Additionally, if Sapref helped fund the health study mentioned above, then probably they too realized its superiority over the other issues in this area.
Lastly, Rico who works at groundWork asked Sapref if there was a collaboration plan with the other industries to collectively reduce the SO2 and other emissions in the area. The answer, unsurprisingly, was that there was no such effort. So essentially what I gained was that Sapref had their self-interest and only their self-interest in mind.
Anyways, that was another interesting experience that I had. The best part, there was free food!
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Future updates on Drakensberg trip, CAPE TOWN highlights!, and other great stuff coming soon. Please be patient.
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