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Shell and Exxon's €5bn problem: gas drilling that sets off earthquakes and wrecks homes
Groningen
has been one of Europe’s richest gas fields for 30 years, and thousands
of people say their homes have been damaged by the tremors that
drilling sets off. Now a class action may finally bring them
compensation – and force a rethink of European energy security
‘Nobody is taking this seriously, not the school or the mayor, no one’ …
Annemarie Heite, whose home in Groningen has been scheduled for
demolition after earthquakes caused by oil drilling. Photograph: Hans
Knikman/Demotix
Lucas Amin
Five
years ago, Annemarie Heite and her husband, Albert, bought their dream
home; a traditional 19th-century farmhouse in Groningen province in the
northern Netherlands.
The couple planned to raise their two young daughters in this charming
corner of the Dutch countryside. “Then, the living was still easy, and
affordable,” Annemarie says, her tone bittersweet and nostalgic. Today,
their house is scheduled for demolition.
Hundreds of earthquakes
have wrecked the foundations of the Heites’ home and made it unsafe to
live in. Annemarie’s biggest fear is the safety of her daughters. She
points to a room. “This is where my children sleep,” she says, “and
everyday I’m just picking up pieces of bricks and stuff from the
ceiling.”
Heite fears that her children may not be any safer at
school. Her daughter Zara goes to a local primary school that has not
been structurally reinforced to withstand strong earthquakes. “I feel
powerless. It feels like I can’t do anything,” Heite says. “It’s not
like I’m a frantic, hysterical person, but nobody is taking this
seriously, not the school or the mayor, no one.”
Next door,
Heite’s neighbour’s farmhouse is already a pile of rubble, which yellow
JCBs are clearing away. “It’s collapsed. It’s gone,” Heite says. “They
lived there for 30 years … and over there behind the trees, they
demolished another house.”
Farmhouses like Heite’s are
disappearing across the Groningen countryside as a peculiar, profound
environmental crisis grips the province. At the heart of it are two oil
companies, Shell and Exxon Mobil,
and a government that, for two decades, denied responsibility for its
actions and ignored the voices of citizens and scientists. The scandal
has already cost the oil companies €1.2bn [£880m], but last month a
landmark court ruling gave the victims fresh hope that their voices
could be ignored no longer. And if they are right, the consequences
could be profound: a compensation bill that could stretch to more than
€5bn in Holland, an energy security headache for Europe, and an
invocation for the world to think about the real cost of burning fossil
fuels.
By Emily Atkin
Exxon Mobil Corp. subsidiary XTO Energy will have to face criminal
charges for allegedly dumping tens of thousands of gallons of fracking waste at a Marcellus Shale drilling site in 2010, according to a Pennsylvania judge’s ruling on Thursday.
Following a preliminary hearing, Magisterial District Judge James G.
Carn decided that all eight charges against Exxon—including violations
of both the state Clean Streams Law and the Solid Waste Management
Act—will be “held for court,” meaning there is enough evidence to take
the fossil fuel giant to trial over felony offenses.
Pennsylvania’s Attorney General filed criminal charges back in September, claiming Exxon had removed a plug from a wastewater tank,
leading to 57,000 gallons of contaminated water spilling into the soil.
The Exxon subsidiary had contested the criminal charges, claiming there
was “no lasting environmental impact,” and that the charges could
“discourage good environmental practices” from guilty companies.
“The action tells oil and gas operators that setting up
infrastructure to recycle produced water exposes them to the risk of
significant legal and financial penalties should a small release occur,”
Exxon said at the time.
