People - profit - planet

From the Dutch media we learned that NuStar has hired the former Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Bernard Bot, to lobby for its interests in The Hague (see also https://www.sp.nl/column/ronald-van-raak/2011/bel-ben-bot). So much for NuStar's "open and honest communication" they claim they're so committed to.

We also learned that Mr. Bot is working for the company Meines & Partners in The Hague. Meines & Partners is a company that states on its website to feel socially responsible. In other words, they follow the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (in Dutch Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen). The Triple P approach is often used to describe these principles: People, Profit, Planet.

Corporate Social Responsibility can be described as a way of doing business aimed at economical results (Profit), with respect for social aspects (People), within the ecological conditions (Planet).

Lobbying for NuStar, in SEAD's opinion, only serves the P for Profit. The story that Mr. Bot has for the Dutch MPs must be really convincing: NuStar has built a 3.8 barrel facility in Amsterdam, and it hires Dutch company Verwater to build their tanks in Amsterdam, St. Eustatius.

But we really wonder how the People and the Planet are served by NuStar's expansion in the Farm area. SEAD has asked Meines & Partners to give some clarification on this matter.

Holland to benefit from NuStar's expansion

As stated on several occasions, the St. Eustatius government is in favor of NuStar expansions plans. Economical development of the island is the main argument. Commissioner Van Putten in The Daily Herald of September 9, 2011: "The island must see a significant contribution in order for the Executive Council to give its fiat to any expansion plan".  Van Putten was on a working visit in the Netherlands to discuss the NuStar proposal with the Dutch Ministries.

The Dutch Minister of Kingdom Affairs made it very clear that St. Eustatius government is the one to decide on the expansion. Given that fact, it is very interesting to follow NuStar's lobby in The Hague. NuStar seems to pay frequent visits to members of parliament in The Hague, and former Minister of foreign affairs, Ben Bot himself is one of the lobbyist trying to win them over.

So what's in it for the Dutch?

NuStar and its predecessors always paid very low taxes on the island. Since 10 October 2010, the island of St. Eustatius no longer is part of the Netherlands Antilles, but became a public entity of the Netherlands. One of the first things the Dutch changed in St. Eustatius was the tax system. The main increase in tax revenue of NuStar will go directly to The Hague, as a local council member states in Statia News. 

St. Eustatius got extra funding from Holland for education and health care. In other important areas, local government is very much on its own. The government faces huge problems according to the same council member:

• "Government cannot pay decent salaries, which makes it very hard to attract quality personnel. Also many of our locals don’t want to come back home because of this.
•  Government buildings are almost beyond repair and not suitable to work in. There is no money on the budget for maintenance.
• All our roads and other infrastructure are in a deplorable state and need urgent attention.
• There is not one cent for investment. Instead there is a multi-million dollar investment deficit with their roads, electricity supply system."

With an annual "free resource" of 7,4 million dollar coming from Holland, it is impossible for St. Eustatius government to get the island's infrastructure on an acceptable level.

So this is actually a very smart move of Dutch government. They collect the money and leave local government to deal with angry citizens, ravaged eco-systems and destroyed archeological sites.

Expansion area

Contribution of Annemieke Jansen


This YouTube film is made with Google Earth Pro and shows you the island of St. Eustatius, the location of Nustar and the area where Nustar wants to expand.

Open letter to NuStar Board of Directors

Dear Sirs,

This letter serves to inform you about current developments involving NuStar Energy L.P. (NYSE: NS). NuStar Energy L.P. is the second largest oil terminal operator in the USA and the fourth largest in the world. Their largest facility by far is located on the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius. With its capacity of 13 million barrels the terminal on St. Eustatius alone can hold as much as 25 per cent of all NuStar's terminals in the USA combined (50.6 million barrels). The operation on this island is therefore a key factor in NuStar Energy's overall results.

At the NAPTP MLP Investor Conference in May 2011, NuStarGP Holdings, LLC (NYSE: NSH), which owns general partner interests in NuStar Energy L.P. and manages the business affairs of NuStar Energy L.P., stated that they were constructing another million barrels capacity on St. Eustatius. However, these plans have generated considerable unrest amongst the population of the island. Petitions against the current plans have been organized. Protests against the proposed expansion have led to repeated questions being asked to the relevant Ministers in the Dutch Parliament. Interest groups have also appealed to UNESCO.

The concerns and protests are about the proposed location of NuStar's additional tanks and associated new jetty. Their proximity to residential areas, schools, the island's only swimming beach, recreational areas and the airport is considered a threath to the inhabitants' health, safety and general quality of life. Unique eco systems and coral reefs will be damaged and limit the chances to get on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

In addition, unique cultural heritage will be affected or even destroyed by the current plans as the site includes extensive 18th century slave cemeteries and a private colonial plantation cemetery dating back to 1719. The destruction of slave cemeteries is a particularly sensitive issue on an island of which the population predominantly descends from enslaved Africans.

 

What affects the inhabitant's perception of NuStar Energy as a responsible corporate citizen is the fact that alternatives are available. However, these will involve higher investments and NuStar is therefore consistently turning them down. This leads to the notion that in the eyes of NuStar Energy, the people of St. Eustatius - the island that contributes more to NuStar Energy's profits than any other of their sites - are not worth spending more money for. This negative perception of NuStar Energy has already started to spread - to the Dutch politcal arena and internationally.
http://no-to-nustar-expansion-steustatius.blogspot.com/

 

Good corporate citizenship has rightly become an important part of a company's sustainability. NuStar Energy L.P. is currently putting theirs at risk by not showing respect to the community that harbors the biggest contributor to their profits.

 

Sincerely 

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.

Support for NuStar Statia referendum

Yesterday, the Dutch parliamentary committee of Kingdom Relations discussed the NuStar expansion plans (among other things). Political parties Socialist Party (SP), GroenLinks, and PvdA now seem to be in favor of a referendum for the Statia people.

SEAD is not in favor of a referendum because the necessary conditions cannot be met on the island (freedom of speech, public access to information, absence of intimidation). We'll come back to that in a separate blog post.


 Questions were also being asked to minister Donner about whether or not the Dutch government was supposed to be involved in the decision making on the building permit for NuStar.

The Minister said that primarily the decision making was a matter of local government and secondarily, other Minsters than himself should be addressed. In earlier meetings however, Donner had assured Parliament that the Dutch Government would be involved in the decision-making process.

Read the full article in The Daily Herald: Support for NuStar Statia referendum

NuStar expansion plan will change Statia’s face forever

An extensive article in The Daily Herald today on the NuStar expansion by Suzanne Koelega.

"The NuStar oil terminal expansion plan in St. Eustatius is a clear example of a clash between business interests and development, and nature and cultural and archaeological heritage on a limited amount of land." Read the full article