Environmental consultancy SLR Consulting, on behalf of Total Exploration & Production South Africa (Tepsa), has granted respondents 30 additional days to comment on the company’s draft scoping report for further oil exploration and drilling in blocks 11B and 12B, along the Southern Cape coast.

The draft version of the scoping report was initially released for a 30-day review and comment period from June 19 to July 20, but this has been extended for another 30 days.

Nonprofit organisation The Green Connection (TGC) says this extension followed a “severely flawed” public participation process.

TGC states that, at a time when South Africans are preoccupied with the Covid-19 pandemic, procedurally fair public participation is a major challenge. The organisation is also concerned about the environmental-impact assessment (EIA) process being conducted during this time, since no open public meetings are allowed.

TGC representative Liziwe McDaid says millions of South Africans could potentially be affected by decisions taken by Tepsa and government. “Talking to a handful of people cannot be considered, by any stretch, to equal meaningful public participation.

“We understand that the lockdown has made things more complicated, but that does not mean that proper processes do not have to be followed. These actions have far-reaching and long-lasting impacts, and should therefore not be rushed.”

TGC, as well as Petroleum South Africa and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, in a letter to SLR asked for more time to comment, since the draft scoping report is a complex and information-heavy document.

The stakes are high for the potentially affected environment and the comment requires expert input, which will take time, TGC believes.

McDaid says TGC actually seeks a postponement of the entire EIA process, at least until the lockdown restrictions are lifted or until such time as effective notice and meaningful opportunities for public participation are afforded to historically disadvantaged communities and subsistence fishers living along the Southern Cape coast, which will be most affected should any catastrophic incident occur on Tepsa’s part.

TGC also criticised SLR’s use of commercial newspapers and digital access to information as the only means of distributing information, rather than also using radio advertisements, local notices and hard copies of the EIA documentation in public spaces, which are more accessible to the affected communities. 

BACKGROUND

SLR in a document with EIA information published early in June says there are currently 161 stakeholders registered on the project database, which may be directly or indirectly affected by the projects, including government, maritime authorities, fishing associations, environmental partnerships, the general public, offshore oil and gas operators and fishing companies and operators.

SLR states that a meeting was held with the Petroleum Agency South Africa on June 10 to discuss the approach to public participation during this time. SLR then, on behalf of Tepsa, submitted a public participation plan to the association, which was subsequently approved by them on June 15.

“A background information document (BID) with preliminary high-level project information was compiled and distributed for information purposes to all identified interested and affected parties on May 8 this year.

"This document outlined Tepsa’s proposed new exploration activities for the Block 11B/12B area and also indicated activities that were planned for Block South Outeniqua, which will form part of a separate application.

“Owing to the Covid-19 restrictions on formal public participation, the BID was only distributed as an introductory step in order to notify interested and affected parties of the initiation of the ESIA process and the opportunity to participate in the process going forward,” SLR says.

The BID provided an indication of when the scoping report would be made available for formal comment.

Although this step was not regarded as a formal pre-application public consultation step, it did provide interested and affected parties with an opportunity to formally register on the database, to submit contact details of other parties that might be interested or affected by the proposed activities and to submit any written comment.

Further, SLR says its newspaper advertisements announcing the proposed project and the availability of the scoping report for review and comment were placed in the Cape Times, Die Burger Western Cape and Eastern Cape and the Eastern Cape Herald.

These advertisements represent the start of the EIA process, inviting interested parties to register on the project database and thereafter receive opportunities for comment.

The draft scoping report is available on SLR’s website for download. The consultancy states that no hard copies of the report could be made available in public libraries as originally intended.

Additionally, SLR says that, owing to Covid-19 restrictions, no open public meetings were allowed to take place during the scoping report review and comment period, and therefore stakeholders registered on the interested and affected parties database had been offered an opportunity to attend virtual meetings.