EPA postponed decision

http://markgar.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/epa-postponed-decision/

EPA postponed Decision
September 28, 2007 at 9:02 am | In Statements |

Yesterday’s announcement by the EPA that it is further postponing granting a Pollution Control Licence to Shell follows last week’s publication of three new possible pipeline routes for the Corrib gas project. Taken together, these events starkly reveal the dysfunctional nature of the present project.
There could hardly be a clearer example of project-splitting. Approval to operate the proposed refinery is being considered even in the absence of any agreed pipeline to supply the refinery and in the absence of any consent for such a pipeline.
The project is marred not just by project-splitting. In addition, no proper environmental assessment has been conducted, or can yet be conducted, given that, because no pipeline has been agreed, the features of the overall project are as yet unknown. Therefore, the cumulative impacts cannot, as a matter of logic, be determined.
Beneath the careful PR manipulation and corporate spinning, the Corrib gas project is now a byword for incompetence and arrogance. In that sense, it fits neatly into, and fully typifies, the general mediocrity and ineptitude of public governance in Ireland.
Given the refusal of the present Minister for the Marine to initiate a fully independent review of the entire project, the only prospect for a rigorous and detailed examination of the project in its totality now lies with the European Commission. I urge the Commission to intervene as soon as possible to ensure that environmental protection and the rights of citizens are fully upheld.