Shell Pulling Out of Glengad till early Spring

Impor­tant Update from Erris.
The word is – Shell are pulling out of Glen­gad and sus­pend­ing work till ear­ly Spring. Shell ‘con­sul­tants’ are inform­ing local res­i­dents that the beach is being ‘rein­stat­ed’ and the work will take a num­ber of weeks.

The Soli­taire has moved on and is ‘off hire’ to Shell.

No press release has issued from Shell and they are behind in their week­ly ‘progress’ reports to the PAD (Petro­le­um Affairs Divi­son) of Min­is­ter Eamon Ryan’s Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Ener­gy and Nat­ur­al Resources, which can nor­mal­ly be read here: http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Natural/Petroleum+Affairs+Division/Corrib+Gas+Field+Development/SEPIL+Weekly+Progress+Reports+to+PAD.htm

It appears that Shell are wrap­ping up oper­a­tions at the pro­posed land­fall site in Glen­gad. The trench exca­vat­ed through the cliffs into the pro­tect­ed areas is being back­filled, and the cause­way built out into Broad­haven Bay is being removed. Also one side of the site fenc­ing on the beach has been removed. And the cable drum has been removed from the winch.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly the com­mence­ment of remov­ing the cause­way will not be able to remove the hun­dreds of tonnes of fine mate­r­i­al, which has been washed away, pol­lut­ing the local sea area for miles. Fish­er­men have said they can see the dis­coloura­tion in the water 5 or 6 miles away from the Shell beach com­pound.

Var­i­ous mate­ri­als which Shell were sup­posed to have kept stored and sep­a­rate in the com­pound, have in fact been mixed and stored on the beach and much of this, as well as unsuit­able cause­way mate­ri­als, has been wash­ing away for months now, through high tides and rain.

Bro­ken con­crete and steel have also been added to these mate­r­i­al heaps, which I would assume will be dumped or buried on site, whether on the beach or inside the com­pound in the SAC/SPA. It appears that this ‘for­eign rub­ble’ is now being used to fill the trench which was dug through the cliff to take the pipe.

The Soli­taire has left Scot­land for the Span­ish port of Algee­rias, near Gibral­tar, a main bunker port, sev­er­al days ago.

For unknown rea­sons Shell con­tin­ue to employ boats to sit in the bay a few hun­dred metres from the land­fall site, with 3 boats there this morn­ing, includ­ing a small tug / winch boat. Its not clear what if any­thing they are doing.

The road widen­ing and upgrades to facil­i­tate Shell have con­tin­ued, with Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil clos­ing or block­ing the road for long peri­ods despite vehe­ment local objec­tions to these upgrade works, with peo­ple liv­ing along the route being forced to block the sides of the road at their prop­er­ties to pre­vent the Coun­cil steal­ing their mar­gins to widen the road for Shell.

I would remind peo­ple who are inter­est­ed that AFRI are hold­ing a Hedge School, which looks to be even bet­ter than last year’s with a week­end of talks from some very rel­e­vant peo­ple, http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=515&event=1 or http://www.afri.ie for details. That’s the 24th, 25th & 26th Oct.