Political Agenda Overshadows Environmental Concerns
“Investors provide Georgia with unprecedented measures of ecological security, thus all the restrictions on construction of the pipeline are lifted,” Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said at the news briefing on December 2.
“In case there will be a threat to the region’s ecology the route might be changed,” Shevardnadze added.
BTC will deliver one million barrels of Azeri oil per day to the western markets via Georgia and Turkey. Total length of the pipeline will be approximately 1,700 kilometers of which 280 kilometers will be laid in the southern regions of Georgia – places were people are in acute need of jobs and decent infrastructure all.
The Georgian government does not expect only the significant transit fees from the BTC. The project has long been dubbed a “project of the century” should, in the eyes of the government, become a guarantee for Georgia’s stability and security by attracting the attention of the western political and business circles.
Implementation of the US-backed BTC project, with development costs up to USD 3 billion, was, however, jeopardized in the last moment because of the 17 kilometer-long portion of the route, which runs through Georgia’s Borjomi valley, famous with its mineral waters.
Borjomi valley is a picturesque mountain region in southern Georgia with beautiful gorges, pine forests and ski resorts. The pipeline will cross 8 riverbeds and one hill which, independent observers argue, carries a risk for landslides. Georgian and foreign experts believe oil leakage, caused either by a natural disaster (landslide, earthquake) or human factor (sabotage, mismanagement) would inflict the irreparable damage to this area. (http://www.bankwatch.org/issues/moilclima.html)
Experts believe, that if the pipeline fractures in the valley, tens of thousands of oil would flood the central park of Borjomi in just few hours. But besides unique nature of Borjomi valley, Georgia would also loose its yet another greatest natural asset – Borjomi mineral water springs – forever. And this concerns not only environmental organizations and patriotic citizens.
Borjomi valley is a ‘raw material’ stock for several largest companies in Georgia engaged in bottling and selling the natural spring waters. At present the water is sold in 25 countries, with water producing companies bringing the millions of dollars to the country and employing the thousands of locals.
Georgian Glass and Mineral Waters Company is the biggest among them and stringently opposes the plan of construction of the pipeline through Borjomi.
Claims of the independent experts and the businesspeople found support of the Georgian Minister of Environment Nino Chkhobadze, who refused to give an approval of the construction of the pipeline through Borjomi valley till late on December 1. But after the talks with the President Shevardnadze Chkhobadze agreed to sign a document.
The Georgian government delayed to issue so called “environmental permission” to start the construction because of the ecological safety concerns. The delay raised fears in Georgia’s neighbor and strategic partner – Azerbaijan, and friends and supporters such as the United States or the Great Britain. David Woodward, President of the BP-Azerbaijan arrived in Georgia last week to convince Georgian authorities to give a go-ahead to the project.
Earlier, on November 24-26, Ambassador Steven R. Mann, Senior Advisor for Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy of the President of the United States, visited Tbilisi as well. This exceptionally experienced diplomat met with many representatives of the Georgian side, involved in the BTC project. He concluded his visit with discussing the pipeline issue with President Shevardnadze.
Majority of the meetings were held behind the closed doors. At a press conference, held right after the meeting with President Shevardnadze on November 26, Ambassador Mann quite diplomatically stated: “The US government is not building the pipeline and is not paying money for it either. I came here to see myself how the process is developing.”
However, later at the conference, he underlined that he is confident in feasibility of the selected route of the pipeline, because there is a huge amount of work, money and interests of the largest companies of the world involved in it. Therefore, Steve Mann believes that demands of alteration of the Borjomi part of the route are absolutely groundless.
He added that ongoing arguments between the government and the consortium regarding ecological safety of the project “is a very natural process and the consortium, as well as all other concerned parties, welcome such kind of dialogue”.
Gia Chanturia, president of the Georgian International Oil Corporation (GIOC) supported Mann’s statement, saying that the scale and depth of work, conducted to assess ecological impact of the pipeline, was unprecedented. He also stated that his corporation has enough resources to ensure proper exploitation, management and monitoring of the Georgian part of the pipeline, reducing probability of leakage to zero. As Chanturia has said, the consortium will use latest technologies of monitoring and surveillance to prevent such emergencies.
GIOC president also said that the pipeline could withstand 12-point magnitude earthquake, jokingly adding that there won’t be many who would care about the pipeline if such earthquake really happens.
Regarding possibility of sabotaging the pipeline, Ambassador Mann said that he does not believe there is such a threat at present. Besides this, Georgia is quite capable to ensure security of the pipeline independently not only in Borjomi on the whole territory of the country. He added that the second phase of the US-funded Georgian Train and Equip Program will also focus on training Georgian units for ensuring pipeline security.
At the end of the conference Steven Mann said: “I saw that all activities in connection with the pipeline project in Georgia are developing actively, fruitfully and match the schedule. I am confident that the issue of ecological safety will be resolved positively.”
Decision on construction of the pipeline through Borjomi was taken only after the President Shevardnadze’s involvement in burdensome talks. “President takes a final decisions and I take responsibility for this decision [construction of pipe via Borjomi],” Eduard Shevardnadze stated on December 2. It seems, however, that genuine ecological concerns failed to be adequately addressed due to the political expediency.
By David Nozadze, Civil Georgia