Off-shore drilling could endanger Knysna Estuary
PLETTENBERG BAY -
The TotalEnergies Exploration & Production South Africa (Teepsa) deep-sea exploration gas drilling proposal by TotalEnergies has raised serious concerns and objections among concerned citizens and environmentalists.
While Teepsa is looking for gas fields, many of their diagrams and maps include oil data and information. If approved, drilling is expected to take place along the south coast, stretching from Mossel Bay to as far as Gqeberha. The Plettenberg Environmental Forum has applied for permission to hold a public demonstration on 18 November to raise public awareness and to protest the intention of Total to conduct test drilling.
Teepsa admits oil spill possibility
The Plett forum and the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa) are opposed to the project. Wessa Eden representative Dr Ted Botha, a former Rhodes University professor, has raised a red flag over potential blow-outs and leaks as a result of drilling activity.
Leaks could potentially contain oil – as admitted by Teepsa.
Their chapter on mitigation raises the spectre (in their words) of a remote possibility of a well blowout, should an imbalance in pressure between the substrate and the wellhead occur. This would not be easy to stop or fix.
The Teepsa document states that in a worst case scenario, there is a probability of up to 90% that a blow-out could result in an oil spill, which could extend up to 290km south-west of the rupture point, or as far away as (theoretically) 950km to the southwest.
If this was the case, oil could reach international waters.
Potential disaster for coastline
Oil or condensate spills could spell disaster for the coastline too and could, conceivably, result in irreparable damage to water bodies, including the Knysna Estuary.
"Places as far afield as Gqeberha, Plettenberg Bay, Knysna and Mossel Bay could be adversely impacted," say the environmentalists. "Catastrophic does not begin to define what will be an ecological disaster."
Botha says the data presented in the Teepsa Environmental and Social Impact assessment (ESIA) for Block 11b/12B, spotlights a high probability and potential of an ecological disaster of unfathomable size, extent and duration along the southern coast.
The impact on coastal environments cannot be underestimated. For example, there is a diverse community of flora and fauna in the narrow coastal strip between the high and low watermark and in the shallow subtidal zones. Species that have evolved to cope with the dynamic nature of this habitat cannot survive elsewhere.
Knysna Estuary
A spill could result in the Knysna Estuary being critically affected.
The Teepsa model suggests that there is a small probability (0,5 to 1%) that a pipeline rupture would result in oil reaching the shore and there is a high probability of oil reaching and entering the Knysna Estuary.
This estuary is one of three large, permanently open estuarine bays along the South African coastline and it is considered to be the most ecologically significant estuary in South Africa, containing more than 42% of all estuarine biodiversity including the endemic Knysna seahorse, which relies on the survival of the local eelgrass species.
However, the probability could be much higher from the southernmost drill site and the worst-case results indicate a maximum shoreline impact probability to the Knysna area of up to 100%, depending on the season.
Thus, the Teepsa document rates the intensity and impact of a crude oil spill on pelagic and coastal systems to be very high if no mitigation process is implemented.