Brent Spar - Greenpeace Involvement

Greenpeace Involvement

Greenpeace became aware of the plan to sink the Brent Spar at sea on 16 February 1995. The organization had been campaigning against ocean dumping in the North Sea since the early 1980s, using high-seas tactics to physically hinder the dumping of radioactive waste and waste from titanium dioxide production, and lobbying for a comprehensive ban on ocean dumping through the OSPAR convention.

Greenpeace objected to the plan to dispose of the Brent Spar at sea on a number of issues:

1. That there was a lack of understanding of the deep sea environment, and therefore no way to predict the effects of the proposed dumping on deep sea ecosystems.
2. The documents which supported Shell's licence application were "highly conjectural in nature", containing unsubstantiated assumptions, minimal data and extrapolations from unnamed studies.
3. That dumping the Brent Spar at sea would create a precedent for dumping other contaminated structures in the sea and would undermine current international agreements. The environmental effects of further dumping would be cumulative.
4. Dismantling of the Brent Spar was technically feasible and offshore engineering firms believed they could do it safely and effectively. The necessary facilities were already routinely in use and decommissioning of many other oil installations had already been carried out elsewhere in the world.
5. To protect the environment, the principle of minimizing the generation of wastes should be upheld and harmful materials always recycled, treated or contained.

Greenpeace alleged that the scientific arguments for ocean dumping were being used as a way of disguising Shell's primary aim: to cut costs.