Response NAM
Will history repeat itself, as Ensink fears? According to the NAM, the situations then and now cannot be compared. “Many parties, including the former municipality of Schoonebeek and other industries in the area, as well as NAM, have dumped waste in the Gat van Reef, as was not unusual in the past,” says NAM spokesperson Hein Dek.
NAM has recognized this. The Gat van Reef will be cleaned up later this year and NAM will pay for about half of the cleanup costs.
More than thirty years ago, wells, pipes and locations in and on the oil field were cleaned up. According to Dek, soil remediation was also carried out before the sites were handed over to the land owners. However, there is still pollution in the soil. “What remains are a number of contaminants, the remediation of which takes a lot of time.”
Dek points out, among other things, the former Water Clearing Installation site on the Valendisweg and the old yard on the Beekweg. Together with a few other old NAM sites, these will be removed in the coming years. “There is no question of land that has not been or will be remediated.”
Injecting production water has nothing to do with this in any way and is also not new in Drenthe, according to the NAM spokesperson. “The production water released from the nearby gas extraction from a field in Coevorden is injected into an empty gas field below the Schoonebeek oil field.”
The NAM cannot yet say anything about the way in which the waste water will enter the soil. “We are comparing possible alternative solutions. We are discussing this with the local authorities, the province, the water board and the Ministry of Economic Affairs.”