The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to remain silent on the accusation that it “systematically and knowingly” violated the law in issuing the environmental permit for ExxonMobil’s Yellowtail Development Project.
The pronouncement was made by environmentalist Simone Mangal-Joly in a letter sent to EPA’s Executive Director Kemraj Parsram just over two weeks ago.
Parsram has been silent throughout the process and repeated efforts by Stabroek News to contact him for over two months have proven unsuccessful.
Mangal-Joly has told Stabroek News that she has not yet received an acknowledgement or a response to her letter to the EPA head.
On March 30, 2022, the EPA granted the environmental permit to Exxon and just two days later the production licence was issued.
In her open letter to Parsram on April 16, Mangal-Joly highlighted four areas where she said the EPA committed violations of the Environmental Protection Act during the process leading up to the granting of the permit. The main violation, she said, stemmed from the beginning of the process where the EPA failed to disclose the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the EIA, ultimately denying the public adequate participation.
The TOR for a study specifies the obligations consultants are required to fulfil in the conduct of the study and the EPA failed to disclose the TOR for the Yellowtail EIA during the full duration of the statutory 60 day comment period. The TOR was released on December 13, 2021 two days before the end of the public participation process and after a letter was sent, by Mangal Joly, to the Environmental Protection Board complaining. The EPA had also said that it was not required to disclose the TOR.
Mangal-Joly reminded that Section 11(6) of the Act requires that before an impact assessment is begun, the EPA shall publish a notice to the public with a project summary. Section (11)(7) specifically states that: “Members of the public shall have 28 days from the date of publication referred to subsection (6) to make written submissions to the agency setting out those questions and matters which they require to be answered or considered in the environmental impact assessment.”
She argued that while Sections 11(4) and 11(5) of the Act provide general guidance in the conduct of an EIA, Sections (11)(6) and (7) provide the necessary specificity for assessing each application through the development TORs. She added that although the EPA held public meetings, it still knowingly violated the law when it withheld the TORs for almost the entire process.
She also argued that the Agency breached the Act when it failed to assess the significant impacts before granting the permit.
The environmentalist also accused the EPA of violating those processes in the law when it did not publish the reasons for granting the permit and instead issued a notice of decision. She said that the EPA is required by law to identify and account for how significant impacts and public concerns were satisfactorily addressed before it granted a permit.
Overall, she had said that the environmental permit is illegal and invalid.
As part of the Yellowtail Project, ExxonMobil plans to drill between 45 and 67 wells for the 20-year duration of the investment. It is intended to be the largest of the four developments with over 250,000 barrels of oil per day targeted once production commences. Based on the schedule, once approval is granted, engineering commences this year and production in the latter part of 2025.
