The five Mayo men jailed for contempt of court are resolved to stand firm until Shell finds an alternative route for its proposed natural gas pipeline , writes Lorna Siggins
Micheál Ó Seighin, a 65-year-old teacher who retired after a coronary bypass, had bags packed and was only uncertain about the timing of the arrests. Mayo's hero Michael Davitt would well turn in his grave, he observed. Speaking to The Irish Times, he was calm, almost resigned, as he prepared to leave his house in Carrowteigue and turn his back on the spray of the wild Atlantic, the big sky over Broadhaven Bay and the blanket bog of Erris which the late naturalist Frank Mitchell described as one of Ireland's "most dramatic, most fragile" landscapes.
Bríd McGarry, one of the group of seven who own 50 per cent of the land required for the onshore pipeline route, was in tears when she witnessed her five neighbours - Ó Seighin, Willie Corduff, Brendan Philbin, brothers Vincent and Philip McGrath - being led away for contempt of court. She knew that these were men of principle and resolve who could not be bought by promises of compensation. Willie Corduff's relative, Harry Corduff, was jailed in the mid-1960s over a road tax campaign linked to the state of Mayo's roads.
However, McGarry, a chemistry graduate who lives with her widowed mother at Gortacragher, expressed some relief the following day. "I'm not happy with what happened, but it was worse when we were in isolation here. The truth is going to start emerging now, and more and more people are going to start asking questions."
McGarry knew it had to come to a head, after months of claims of provocation and several instances where gardaí were called to monitor attempts by Shell officials to peg out land for the pipeline route. The company chose January 11th, the stormiest day of the year, with 97 mph winds recorded at Belmullet, to make one of its first forays.
Already, the impact of the men's jailing has had a shock effect on some of the 27 landowners who did sign compulsory acquisition agreements and those who had hitherto supported the €900 million project to pipe natural gas ashore from the Corrib field 70 km west. Some would have been sceptical enough about the opposition of seven landowners who own 50 per cent of lands on the route. They would also have been sceptical of a warning issued earlier this year to Erris residents by the US environmental lobby, Global Community Monitor, which produces an annual "Other Shell Report". The group has highlighted environmental controversies involving other Shell projects ranging from Durban in South Africa to Sakhalin island in Russia, and believes Erris could be next.
The jailings have stunned Chris Tallott, a member of the Pro-Erris Gas Group (PEGG), which supports the project and disbanded after An Bord Pleanála gave final approval for the onshore terminal or refinery at Bellanaboy last year. "I know these five men, I regret very much what has happened, and perhaps it has wakened us up to reality," Tallott says. "Those men are not going to be released now unless Shell can give a firm assurance about safety, and that means looking at other options which will take this pipeline away from people's houses and lands."
Bord Pleanála inspector Kevin Moore evidently believed property protection and human safety were reasonable considerations when he issued his ruling on the Corrib gas terminal planning application in April 2003. At this stage, the majority shareholder in Corrib was Enterprise Energy Ireland (subsequently taken over by Royal Dutch Shell).
The appeals board rejected permission for the terminal because of the high risk posed by the transfer of 650,000 cubic metres of peat to adjoining blanket bog as part of the site plan. Moore gave two other reasons for rejecting the application: visual obtrusiveness and adverse environmental impact; and the risk to human health under the Seveso II directive on transfer of hazardous substances, given the proximity of the terminal site to houses.
While the inspector's remit did not extend to the linking pipeline, he pointed out that projects similar to the Corrib proposal in other parts of the world were tied back to offshore processing platforms and not to land-based terminals. The developer had not proved that an alternative option was non-viable, he said.
MOORE WAS OVERRULED by his board on these points, but not on the bog instability issue - which was to prove telling when the Dooncarton landslide occurred in the area in September 2003. The appeals board eventually approved the terminal plan with conditions in October 2004. Opponents in Mayo weren't surprised - An Bord Pleanála's future was under threat; the Government still had plans for a critical infrastructure body which would fast-track "strategic" national projects. The Corrib gas field was one, given that the State was relying on one indigenous source off Kinsale, Co Cork.
Yet the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey, has also acknowledged the risks in the Dáil. Replying to a written question from Mayo TD Michael Ring (FG) on February 24th last, he said that the onshore pipeline had certain design considerations which were "unusual and unique both within Ireland and also within Europe", and "for this reason there is no direct precedent".
The "extremely high design pressure of 345 bar" is "well above normal design pressure experienced for onshore distribution gas pipelines", Dempsey said. "This has resulted from the relatively rare occurrence where the pipeline is connected directly to the producing wells and not via an intermediate platform or processing facility as happens in most other cases".
Urged to intervene over this week's development, Dempsey is bound to a project which Fianna Fáil has been keen to back, ever since the party entertained EEI executives in its Galway Races tent in 1998. One of his predecessors in marine, Frank Fahey, attacked critics of the project on several occasions and, at a Humbert Summer School debate in 2001, accused them of "holding up progress".
Fahey promised that towns in the west would benefit by getting gas supplies, yet it emerged that there had been no such arrangement with Bord Gáis. Changes made to the 1987 and 1992 Finance Acts also meant that the State would reap little benefit, as no royalties are paid and the tax rate is set at 25 per cent. The Irish Offshore Operators' Association says this arrangement is essential to maintain exploration interest in Irish waters, given the poor record of exploitation to date.
Under the "project splitting" arrangement, which has ensured that every aspect of the Corrib plan is handled by a number of different bodies, the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources is both responsible for promoting and also for approving and monitoring key aspects of the plan. The Health and Safety Authority has no remit in relation to the pipeline, apart from the safety of construction workers employed on its laying. As a judicial review of the project, currently before the High Court, has heard, there has been no overall environmental assessment of the entire €900 million scheme.
IN DECIDING TO take its legal action against the landowners, which it says it regrets, Shell has argued that it has all the "necessary consents". These consents relate to preparatory work only, however. The Minister told the Dáil last Thursday he had not yet approved the high-pressure pipeline's commissioning and installation. An "independent" review of the pipeline's quantified risk assessment, which he must publish before consent can be given, would show that it met the highest safety standards, he said.
Mayo TD Dr Jerry Cowley (Ind) dismisses this review as purely a "desk study" of information provided by the developers, coming in the wake of another "independent" review which Dempsey commissioned - and which he had to abandon in May when it emerged that the consultants carrying it out were actually owned by Shell. Dempsey's department has also confirmed to The Irish Times this week that one of its chief advisers on the pipeline, Andrew Johnson, worked for the pipeline designers J P Kenny from 1983 to 1986.
Galway-based engineer Brian Coyle, who submitted an objection to the terminal planning application, says Dempsey and Shell are correct when they state that the pipeline is designed to the highest standards.
"No engineer wants to design a pipeline that fails," he says. "The reality is that pipelines do fail, and have done so all over the world with fatal consequences."
In July 2004, for instance, a Shell-operated pipe ruptured in Ghislenghien, 40 km south of Brussels, killing 21 people. A leak was reported on the pipeline, which runs from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge into northern France, 37 minutes before the explosion. Firefighters were among those killed when the explosions destroyed two factories in the industrial park.
On August 19th, 2000, a 45 bar natural gas transmission pipeline exploded near Carlsbad, New Mexico, killing an extended family of 12 people on a camping trip; the Corrib gas pipeline is designed for 345 bar pressure - up to four times the pressure of any Bord Gáis transmission pipeline.
"That's why a risk analysis, as cited by the Minister, is not the solution. The issue is the route this pipeline will take. The risk analysis wouldn't have to be carried out if this pipeline wasn't running so close to people's houses and lands.
"There is no precedent for this proximity, and it is not recognised by international standards including the Seveso II directive," Coyle adds. "If this Government does approve it, it will have set a precedent which could have disastrous consequences in many more places than north Mayo."