The great Corrib gas controversy

The claims of 'highest international standards' in the Corrib gas project are no more than a 'public relations attempt to placate an inquiring public', according to a new Centre for Public Inquiry report. Harry Browne reports

The risks of the Rossport pipeline "have been considerably understated", according to an expert report commissioned by the Centre for Public Inquiry.

Richard Kuprewicz, an American engineer and pipeline-safety consultant, writes that the siting for the Corrib pipeline project "reflects a lack of specialised experience, or a serious breakdown in management and/or decision processes".

The report, "The Proposed Corrib Onshore System: An Independent Analysis", is often highly technical, dealing with operating pressures, thermal flux and, chillingly, the "rupture impact zone". However, it is in clear English that Kuprewicz sets out to dispel "the myth of highest international standards" in the Shell-led project. He calls the claims of such standards "a public relations attempt to placate an inquiring public".

He writes that the Rossport production pipeline is unique, a "model one", ie unprecedented in terms of length, high pressure and siting near a populated area. This makes it essentially meaningless to measure it against some "international standard".

Previous risk-analysis of the project, Kuprewicz says, has not been appropriate to the uniqueness and potential dangers to people of the pipeline. Moreover, because the potential operating pressures of the untreated gas are so high as to be literally "off the chart", they are not covered by any of the standards being applied as they relate to the proximity of dwellings. (The nearest home to the proposed route is 70 metres away.)

Kuprewicz implies that a "Third World" standard has been applied in Mayo. He writes: "Within the industry a term has become popular lately: "third worlding". In this context, "third worlding" means to unwisely allow use of land for purposes that, in all probability, will result in severe loss of life. However, the country's government places so little real value on such loss that corporations... are willing to take the risk of massive catastrophic failure, usually for perceived short-term gain."

He also cites "Space Shuttle Syndrome" – "the propensity to rush launch at all costs while downplaying or ignoring very real risks".

Kuprewicz concludes that "many of the previous statements" supporting the project have been "overstating the difficulty and costs of offshore alternatives", eg a processing plant in shallow water just off the coast. He writes: "There is a strong appearance that the availability of the Gas Processing Plant land site may be driving the decision to route a production pipeline in an unwise location."

The site for the processing plant on the bog at Bellanaboy, bought for the project from Coillte in an opaque process in 2001, is the reason that Shell must run a pipeline across 9 kilometres of land, on a proposed route that includes the property of some of the Rossport Five. The company got compulsory-acquisition power from then-Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources Frank Fahey in May 2002 to work on the route, but didn't try to start work until after planning permission had been granted on appeal for the processing plant in October 2004.

The efforts of local people to block access to the route as it runs near the village of Rossport led to injunctions against Micheál Ó Seighin, Philip McGrath, Vincent McGrath, Willie Corduff and Brendan Philbin, then, finally, their highly publicised imprisonment in June. Shell did manage to lay pipe on other, Coillte-owned land, and then overstepped its consents by welding the pipe without ministerial permission.

Kuprewicz's criticisms of the site and risk-assessment for the "Corrib onshore system" are strongly worded, but the project has survived previous expert criticism. A devastating inspector's report for An Bord Pleanála in 2003 by Kevin Moore led to the initial rejection of plans for the plant site. (Due to a legal loophole, the pipeline itself has never been the object of scrutiny from planning authorities as such, though the Moore report did discuss it.)

Moore wrote: "There is no evidence in the totality of the documentation now before the Board that specific alternative terminal sites were seriously investigated." He accused Shell of ignoring the board's request that it provide information about alternatives. The inspector's report added, pointedly, that the ministerial permissions for the pipeline route "could reasonably be determined as being premature" and had "emphasised a perception to some degree that the granting of planning permission for the processing terminal at the Ballinaboy site is a fait accompli".

An Bord Pleanála rejected the processing plant in 2003, though on more narrow grounds than Moore recommended. After an intense period of political lobbying and a few changes in the proposal – including the moving of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of peat to another bog 11 kilometres away – the approval was granted late last year.

The storm of controversy and protest unleashed by that approval has quieted in recent weeks, as court cases and winter weather have put the pipeline and the pickets on hold until the new year. The new report, complete with graphics and charts and even a dramatic picture of a fireball from a US pipeline rupture, will re-focus attention on the safety of the proposed pipeline as it passes between the homes of Rossport and the shores of Sruwaddacon Bay.

Kuprewicz, president of a pipeline consultancy called Accufacts Inc, calls himself "an independent consultant" rather than a campaigner, though he has represented public concerns on technical and advisory committees. He told Village that his industry experience was extensive and that he had "constructed, designed, permitted and operated numerous pipelines" in the US. He holds a degree in chemical engineering from the University of California at Davis.

Kuprewicz's report is just one part of an attractively produced 140-page document from the Centre for Public Inquiry, investigating the corporate, legal, political and technical background to the Corrib gas controversy.

Newspapers in Ireland are not prepared to spend the money on investigations that is available from Atlantic Philanthropies to the Centre for Public Inquiry. But the centre's report mentions another possible reason for shortsighted journalism on the issue of offshore exploration and who gains from it: "Providence Resources, controlled by Tony O'Reilly, the owner of Independent News and Media, is the largest Irish company involved in offshore oil and gas activity and controls significant acreages off the west coast and in the Celtic Sea."

Kuprewicz's report is available to download at www.publicinquiry.ie. The larger document, The Great Corrib Gas Controversy, Fiosrú Vol 1, No 2, is published by Centre for Public Inquiry and costs €15