ISTANBUL — The multinational oil company Shell has systematically polluted a huge underground reserve of drinkable water in an aquifer near the city of Diyarbakir in south-east Turkey, where up to 2 million people live, Greenpeace revealed at a press conference here on March 26.
Internal Shell documents leaked to Greenpeace show that Shell pumped 487.5 million barrels of production water contaminated with crude oil, solvents and other chemicals into the Midyat aquifer between 1973 and 1994.
Shell experts are quoted in reports as saying that the solution is the injection of the contaminated water into the Mardin oil reservoir, where the water comes from and which is much deeper than the Midyat aquifer. Money was allocated to decreasing the amount of production water injected by half by the end of 1995. However, this was cancelled and most of the money clawed back before Shell sold the operation to the international operating company Perenco.
One memo, dated December 22, 1995, states: "It is unfortunate to see a change of priorities towards maximising cash before divestment by sacrificing environmental targets".
The Shell "Midyat Adsorption Study" said that an additional 172.3 million barrels of polluted water will be injected into the aquifer by the end of 2001.
The documents reveal that in the "worst case" the aquifer could be polluted up to 14-20 km away from the well by the year 2006 and that by 2030-2060 it will be under the city of Diyarbakir, with aquifer contamination for 100-300 years. The reported "likely" case is pollution apparent at 2.5-5 km from a well and contamination at Diyarbakir after 840-1000 years.
Many of the leaked Shell documents confirm that Shell managers knew that the injection into the aquifer is against European Union and Turkish environmental regulations.