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Most Norwegians seem to support their government’s moratorium on deepwater drilling, especially after the gulf disaster. But not all. The World’s Gerry Hadden visits one town where just about everyone says the environmental risks are worth it. (Photo: Wikipedia user Jarvin)
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DAVID BARON: I’m David Baron and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. To ban or not to ban, that is the question. Last month President Obama imposed a six month moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the massive oil spill there. A federal judge overturned the ban, but the White House has appealed. The spill, and the failure to stop it, have alarmed other nations. As we reported last week, Norway has temporarily halted new oil and gas exploration in its waters. The move has many supporters, but you won’t find them in tiny Norwegian coastal towns like Hammerfest as The World’s Gerry Hadden reports.
GERRY HADDEN: It seems that everyone in Hammerfest opposes Norway’s moratorium on off shore drilling. It’s easy to see why. Off shore drilling transformed this place. Take Hammerfest’s wine store, it seems too big for this tiny town with wines from all over the world. But just about anything became possible once the government opened a liquefied natural gas plant here about eight years ago. That’s when manager Olf Oler Baglum decided to relocate his wine store to the waterfront.
OLF OLER BAGLUM: We are moving from a little bit upstairs in town and now we are moving here where you have the coastline there, you have boats; you have buses and much more central.
HADDEN: Nearly a tenth of the town works directly or indirectly for Statoil’s gas plant on a nearby peninsula jutting out toward the Barents Sea. Tax revenues from that plant paid for the swank mall that houses Baglum’s wine shop. Olt Edwardson is the town’s director of development. He says the old Hammerfest already seems like a dream, a bad dream.
OLT EDWARDSON: Some said in the eighties or nineties it’s like a East Germany town.
HADDEN: In other words, drab, depressed, with little work. For centuries people here basically fished or fished. Now, Edwardson says, the taxes the town levies on the gas plant have enabled Hammerfest to grow into a thriving little town.
EDWARDSON: We have been able to build new schools and we have built a great culture center.
HADDEN: Construction is everywhere. Here, workers lay heating coils under the new main street. The coins will keep the road free of ice during Hammerfest’s long, dark winter. But the biggest change in Hammerfest may not be aesthetic, it may be the people. Not only is the population growing, its getting younger. Hammerfest native Kari Holand works out at the gas plant.
KARI HOLAND: The average age of people working here in our organization is 36 years. So we are also producing children and I believe that is very good for the municipality, with regards to the future.
HADDEN: That faith lies not just in gas, but in future oil exploration. Norway now says it plans to open up previously protected parts of the Barents and North Seas and drilling is set to start this fall in the Goliath oil fields, 55 miles off shore. That means wells, tankers, platforms, and the hope is more jobs. But the drilling will also bring risks for accidents like the Gulf of Mexico disaster. One of the reasons residents seem willing to live with such risks is Norway’s good off shore drilling safety record. Norway has had just a handful of spills in 40 years of off shore work and none of the oil has reached the shore. But at least one Hammerfest resident is concerned about future projects. Roll Steeawnson says his neighbors have been lulled into a false sense of security by their new found wealth.
ROLL STEEAWNSON: The money keep coming in from this industry, especially in the Hammerfest area, and we are happy that they are here.
HADDEN: But Steeawnson says that could change. Steeawnson warns that once the Goliath fields are operational, no one could stop a major oil leak from being carried to shore on the strong sea currents. It’d be easy to dismiss Steeawnson as the town Chicken Little, except for this; he runs the harbor and Hammerfest’s oil spill contingency program. Steeawnson goes on a routine patrol off the coast of Hammerfest. He points to the rocky cliffs and narrow inlets reachable only by sea. He warns that cleaning up spilled oil along here would be very difficult.
STEEAWNSON: That’s because of the nature of the coastline. You will see when we get out there its very steep and it will be very dangerous to send people to this area.
HADDEN: Steeawnson has been pressing ENI, the oil company behind the Goliath project, to put up more money for emergency response equipment. He says the company says no. An ENI spokeswoman in Hammerfest declined to comment, but Statoil’s Kari Holand says it’s no accident that Norway has been relatively spill free.
HOLAND: We have a lot of systems, routines and also the whole thinking about barriers. There’s so many barriers to prevent accidents.
HADDEN: And if history is any indication, Norway’s oil industry is unlikely to lose support for off shore drilling in communities like Hammerfest even in the event of an accident. A case in point, the Gulf of Mexico. There, some communities that depend on oil for jobs have come out against the U.S. drilling ban, even as the oil washes up on their shores. Clean up might take a few years, but people need work their entire lives. That’s why Greenpeace Norway’s Truls Dewloffson says Norway should start transitioning out of oil now before supplies run out or pollution becomes unmanageable.
TRULS DEWLOFFSON: Even though we could shut down oil tomorrow or phase out over the next 15 years, if we do it properly it won’t have any big impacts. If we do it just because we run out of oil, or because we run into a huge accident, of course that will have a major impact. So I think its better to make a decision, get off oil early, and do a smooth phase out. That goes for Norway as an oil producing nation and I think it goes for the world.
HADDEN: But that point of view seems to be in the minority in a town where residents say the good times are here and the best times are yet to come. For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden, Hammerfest, Norway.
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