Monday Noon meeting at Bow St Jetty about oil well drilling off the Raglan Coast

Media Release by Whaingaroa Environmental Defence IncorporatedRegistered no.1912150.
from Secretary: John Lawson, 51 Cliff St, Raglan 07 825 7866 emailjohnrag@vodafone.co.nz

A gathering has been organised for noon today (Labour Weekend Monday) at the Bow St jetty following the revelation that Anadarko’s exploratory well is to be drilled between November and February, just over 100km off the coast, in water up to 1500m deep. 

Though it’s only 100m shallower than Deepwater Horizon, Anadarko’s 250 page Environmental Impact Assessment appears to assume there will be no Gulf of Mexico sized leak. They also say the2012 EEZ Act only requires an EIA and no hearing. I haven’t read the Act carefully enough to know if they’re right. Have you?

• one industry journal gives a good explanation of the difficulty of pressure prediction and claims a 5% failure rate for their pressure detection system.
• another Gulf of Mexico rig caught fire in July and one off Nigeria in 2012.
• in Canada the oil industry averages 578 “environmental incidents” a year.
• North Dakota had 23 blowouts last year.Texas has had 21 so far this year, one of them killing 2 workers at an Anadarko well.

It’s also likely there will be a meeting at 7.30pm in Raglan Town Hall on Tuesday November 5 inviting our MP and other speakers. It’s being arranged by Angeline Greensill as spokesperson for Tainui hapu.

Thanks
John Lawson