These oil spillages have occurred primarily in the main oil producing communities of the Riverine areas of the Niger Delta, in which the Okerenkoko-Gbene which is one of the community in Warri South West Council of Delta state. All stages of oil exploitation impact negatively on the environment and the greatest single environmental problem caused by crude oil exploration in the Niger Delta region is oil spillage. Oil spillage is one of the contentious issues challenging the government, the oil industry and the host communities. According to the National Environmental Study Action Team (NEST) 6, the greatest single environmental problem related with petroleum exploitation in Nigeria is oil spillage, both onshore and offshore.
Surveys have shown in Nigeria an increasing number of recorded oil spills leading to the pollution of the environment. The scale and nature of exploration, exploitation and transportation of oil in Nigeria have raised the incidences of oil spillage. This is because Nigeria’s oil industry is made up of 3 major phases: Crude oil exploration/production, oil refining and petroleum product transportation and marketing 5. Oil is responsible for the greatest amount of environmental pollution in the country, especially in the oil producing areas. The dominant role of oil in Nigeria has pushed agriculture from the early fifties and sixties to the background, as well as the country’s over dependence on the oil sector, has led to a drop in other sectors like tourism, transportation and manufacturing etc. Petroleum production and export plays a major role in Nigeria’s economy and accounts for about 90% of her gross earnings. The spill of 2.4×10 8 barrels of crude oil occurred from 647 incidents between 19 4. According to petroleum resource annual report by researchers over 60,000 spills have transpired in Nigeria during her 40 years of oil exploration. In an attempt to steal oil from them, they damage pipelines 3. Other major causes of oil spill are sabotage which involves bunkering by some unpatriotic Nigerian citizens. Some of these pipes are laid above ground level without proper surveillance, exposing them to wear and tear and other risks 2. Most flow station pipelines are more than 20 years old making them liable to corrosion and leakages.
The major cause of oil spill in Nigeria is lack of constant maintenance of the storage tanks and pipelines 1. These unpleasant events are as a result of human errors and by natural disaster such as earthquakes, deliberate acts by vandals, terrorists or militants. They are usually mostly caused by accidents involving oil tankers, barges, refineries, pipelines and oil storage facilities.
Oil spill is an unwitting release of liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment as a result of human activities. Okerenkoko-Gbene is a community in Warri South West Council of Delta state, one of the oil producing and agro-ecological areas in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria, a region with surplus natural resources including good weather and fertile land for agriculture. Conclusion: This research provided information on individual, community, government, policy makers and organizations involved in or affected by crude oil spillage and oil production activities, to be enlightened with regards to industrial waste management, environmental protection, sustainable development, health care delivery, standard of living of people of affected communities, provision and management of social infrastructure. Results: There was a significant relationship between oil spillage and low productivity and also, there is negative impact of oil spillage on crop productivity and on aquatic lives. Additionally, simple percentage and weighted mean statistics were employed to analyze the data collected, while chi-square was used for testing the hypotheses. A questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. In carrying out the investigation, three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of noteworthy degrees of freedom. Materials and Methods: The population of the sample size is 450. Urhobotha ABSTRACTīackground and Objective: Crude oil has devastating effect on crop productivity and livestock therefore, the strategies for coping with the negative impact of oil spillage on agricultural production were investigated in Okerenkoko-Gbene community in the Niger Delta, Nigeria.
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