Schools within 'blast distance' of planned oil tankers?

Contribution of Menno Walther, St. Eustatius

Nustar is working hard on their extension project. Different people expressed their opinion, questions have been asked. Some answers have been given, but not many. Lately, Nustar described the project in the Daily Herald. Based on what was written, I have to ask myself if we – people living in Statia – will be safe…

Accidents are always possible. In the past, people warned of disasters but have not been taken seriously. Chernobyl,  WTC New York 9/11, Bophal, Seveso, and most recently Fukushima, etc…

Nustar's plan is to build 31 additional storage tanks at the location known as The Farm. This location is our backyard. In the event of an accident, we will not just be the audience, we will be part of the problem. Some distances for all of us to consider:

From the Farm to the Golden Rock Quarter, 700 meters (less than half a mile)

From the Farm to the Golden Rock school, the GWP school and the playground, 500 meters (1/3 of a mile)

From the Farm to the airport runway, 700 meters (less than half a mile)

From the Farm to the center of Oranjestad, 1'000 meters (2/3 of a mile)

People of Statia should be aware that storage tanks fires or explosions happen every year somewhere in the World. An interesting study shows that between 1960 and 2003, 64 storage accidents occurred worldwide. More than one per year in average. http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/3862917/1523127472/name/StorageTankFiresStudy.pdf.

Interestingly, Nustar rejected another option for a location. They said the location is too close to their office, inside the so called "blast distance". What about our children at school just next to the Farm (500 meters - 1/3 of a mile) ? Is the school located outside the "blast distance" ?

Let's have a look at two examples of recent oil storage disasters :

On December 11, 2005, the Buncefield oil storage terminal near London exploded and caught fire. The blast was audible at a distance of 200 km (125 miles), and all the windows were blown out within a radius of 8 km (5 miles). Entire buildings have been destroyed within a radius of 2 km (1 1/4 mile, see picture below). By the way, Oranjestad is within such a radius from the Farm. The fire fighting efforts required 45 vehicles and 180 firefighters. The fire was finally extinguished on December 15th…, 5 days later. More details (for instance the impact of the fire fighting on the environment) on  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire. The description of this disaster made by wikipedia is very interesting. Lots of questions are coming up by them selves… This happened in the UK, not even six years ago.

"Buncefield can never happen again" they said… The picture below was taken not far from here, and in a recent past. On October 25th 2009, the Caribbean Petroleum Corp. (CAPECO) facility in San Juan Puerto Rico caught fire. At least 17 of the 40 tanks burned down. Nobody was hurt, apparently thanks to the "buffer zones" (distance between the facility and the areas where people are living). Nevertheless, 1'500 people have been evacuated from a neighborhood. But in case of such a fire, the entire island of Statia would not be big enough to protect our lives, our homes and our businesses. Maybe a stupid question: where to and how would we evacuate? The airport will not be usable, nor would the route to the harbor. What about our medical capacity ?  http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/world/2009/10/24/33655/Hundreds-evacuated-as-Puerto-Rico-oil-blaze-burns-on.

On top of the "normal" risks, the chosen location by Nustar is exposed to an additional threat. As visible on the map, the Farm (and therefore the storage tanks) is located in the prolongation of the runway of the airport. More than 80% of all aircraft accidents take place during take off or landing. Imagine if there was a plane accident on top of those tanks.

Based on all those facts, and based on the fact that we need to consider the worth case scenario in this matter, my questions are very simple:

• Would Statia be able to manage such a disaster ? Consider how little fire and emergency equipment exists on the island.
• Would Nustar be able to provide the necessary means within no time to fight this kind of catastrophe?
• And last but not least, is the risk acceptable for the people living in Statia?

Some of us are parents. I don't think we want to leave a time bomb to the next generation !

My suggestion, it would be wise and responsible to appoint an independent safety expert. I hope our representatives in the government will do so.