Jumelet continues: “You have a number of Drenthe municipalities, Aa and Hunze, Tynaarlo, Noordenveld and a small part of Assen, that fall under the reverse burden of proof, but not the rest of Drenthe. So not even the small gas fields such as Eleveld/Ekehaar, which are in Southeast Drenthe where gas extraction will be restarted and oil extraction in Schoonebeek. It is unequal treatment of the same problems.”
Jumelet will ask Mining State Secretary Hans Vijlbrief to apply the reverse burden of proof everywhere. “We look at mining differently these days, as the State Secretary himself has shown. Let those companies that mine take care of the claims settlement instead of agencies. We must learn from Groningen, so introduce the reverse burden of proof as soon as possible so that people do not “The Mining Damage Committee has never paid out any damage, so I would like to know from them how this works and how they work.”
In Schoonebeek, once oil extraction has restarted, there will be ‘stacked mining’. The Dutch Petroleum Company (NAM) is extracting oil again. But at the same time, natural gas extraction is still taking place in the gas field beneath the oil field. Wastewater from oil extraction will soon also be injected into this same, almost empty gas field. So that’s three forms of mining stacked on top of each other. Reason enough for Jumelet to want a reverse burden of proof there too.
The opponents of the wastewater injection Stop Afvalwater Schoonebeek are happy with Jumelet’s action. Spokesperson Jenneke Ensink speaks of a “good step that comes not a minute too soon.” Ensink: “If all authorities, including the NAM, say that the risks are not too bad, then you can arrange it properly in this way through a reverse burden of proof. We hope that Jumelet will succeed with Vijlbrief and the NAM.”
In the survey that Dorpsbelangen Schoonebeek (DBS) conducted in 2022 about wastewater injection and oil extraction, three-quarters of the participants already indicated that they were in favor of a reverse burden of proof if oil extraction were to restart. DSB chairman Jos van Hees thinks it is “a very positive commitment from the province to submit this to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate. And it does justice to the results of part of the survey we conducted. Good that the province will stand for the residents, because we have missed that in the municipalities of Emmen and Coevorden.”
Land subsidence, and therefore a cause of damage, can be complicated and different things can reinforce each other, as became apparent at an information meeting about starting up oil extraction and wastewater injection in December 2023 in Schoonebeek. Maarten Pluymaeckers from TNO Geological Survey gave a lesson there about land subsidence. This occurs in the shallow subsurface through subsidence and peat oxidation and in the deep subsurface through gas and oil extraction.
The groundwater that is kept low or adjusted in agricultural areas also plays a role. If your house is partly on sand, and that of the neighbors is on peat, then that also matters whether or not you are affected by subsidence. “But it is very clear, in areas where there is gas or oil extraction, the ground sinks slowly and evenly. Water injection into the gas field also causes the ground to rise again.”
“Can you completely eliminate the subsidence under Schoonebeek through water injection?” the audience asked. Pluymaeckers: “In theory yes, but the question is whether you should want it.” This is partly due to the pressure in the gas field.
After the meeting, an expert from NAM said that the situation surrounding land subsidence near New Amsterdam is a bit more complex. New Amsterdam is located on the edge of the subsidence basin of oil extraction and the now almost empty gas field of New Amsterdam is located in the same place.
Jumelet’s predecessor Tjisse Stelpstra also argued in vain in the past in The Hague for the introduction of a reverse burden of proof for the whole of Drenthe. Jumelet was again triggered by two stories from RTV Drenthe about how the Institute for Mining Damage Groningen (IMG) is unable to map indirect effects of earthquake damage. It is feared that this will make handling damage more difficult in the area around the Norg gas storage facility and Annerveen gas field. The IMG kept it secret for two years that no research had been conducted at all. According to Jumelet, this does not do any good to residents’ confidence in authorities.
Due to the injection and pumping out of the storage, there is deep subsidence around the Norg gas storage facility and the IMG would conduct research into what indirect consequences this would have on the damage to buildings.
A WOO request (Open Government Act) now shows that the IMG research agency commissioned Deltares to investigate this, but that the investigation itself never took place. It would be too complex to investigate indirect effects of deep subsidence in combination with issues such as earthquakes or salt extraction.