Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Monday 29 January 2018
Manmade quakes force Dutch to face future without gas

By MIKE CORDER dergone repeated repairs,
Associated Press is one such victim.
ZEERIJP, Netherlands (AP) "There is so much stress and
— When Nienke Bastiaans tension," he said. "The sad-
fell in love with and bought ness — it's no longer the
a 17th-century thatched cracks in the walls, it's the
house in a rural Dutch vil- cracks in my soul."
lage, there was one person Just around the corner from
who warned about pos- Warink's house is an emp-
sible earthquakes due to ty lot where weakened
gas extraction. houses have been demol-
"Nobody listened to him," ished. An adjoining street
she said. is fenced off so workers
Now, 20 years later, thou- can chip away the houses'
sands of homes in the outer brick wall, strengthen
northeastern Groningen the interior walls and build
province are facing rein- another exterior wall due to
forcement or even demo- the earthquakes.
lition because of hundreds On the legal front, an ap-
of small tremors caused by peals court just upheld a
decades of gas extraction. ruling that NAM must com-
The scope of the problem is pensate residents for the
forcing the Dutch govern- drop in the value of their
ment to confront the pros- Thousands of people took to the streets for a flaming torch parade in Groningen, northern Nether- homes even if the owners
pect of a future without lands, Friday, Jan. 19, 2018, to protest against gas extraction and related earthquakes. do not sell.
locally produced gas and (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) Thijs Jurgens, NAM's man-
lucrative gas tax revenue ager of the Groningen
years earlier than previous- deep impact of the down- contracts to sell gas to discovered the Groningen Earthquakes Organization,
ly expected. side of gas extraction on neighboring countries. gas field, one of the world's said the company believes
Bastiaans and her husband Groningen and Groningers. "They call our gas extrac- largest, with 2,800 billion such compensation should
Tom Robinson just had the The damage to their hous- tion 'the Dutch disease,'" cubic meters (98,870 billion be paid only when a house
entire front wall of their es, the concerns, the feel- said Jorien de Lege of cubic feet) of reserves. It is sold.
home reinforced — paid ings of insecurity, but also Friends of the Earth. "(Gas) has been incredibly lucra- "The court ruled otherwise,
for by the gas extraction the lack clarity about when gave us great wealth, be- tive for NAM and the Dutch and we are going to take
company — and two chim- their damage will be dealt cause our governments ... government. In the 2016 a serious look at that," he
neys replaced because of with," Gerald Schotman, got the revenue from all financial year, NAM paid said.
fears that another tremor just over 3 billion euros ($3.7 NAM has been compen-
could send them crashing billion) to the Dutch gov- sating home sellers in the
through the roof. ernment and made a net earthquake zone for hous-
The work was completed profit of 526 million euros ing value drops since 2013.
shortly before a shallow ($654 million). An earlier court ruling or-
3.4-magnitude earthquake But faced with growing dered NAM to pay com-
on Jan. 8 directly under unrest in the earthquake pensation for "immaterial
their village jolted the re- region, the Dutch govern- damages" such as psycho-
gion and rekindled calls ment has in recent years logical suffering but that is
for the government to end cut the amount of gas under appeal.
gas extraction. The quake extracted. And after the Residents believe their con-
— the most powerful to hit Zeerijp quake, Economic cerns are taking a back
the region in five years — Affairs Minister Eric Wiebes seat.
triggered nearly 3,000 re- wrote to Parliament to say "I think we should close the
ports of property damage, "gas production levels have tap," said Robinson. "But
including a long vertical to come down" even more. telling that to a multination-
crack in Zeerijp's historic Professor Tom Postmes of al is difficult, I think. We're
church tower. Groningen University says just a series of villages here
Thousands marched in the effects of the quakes in northeast Groningen. I
Groningen on Jan. 19 to A crack in the wall of a farm in Hunzinge, northern Netherlands, on public health are seri- don't think we've got a lot
protest the gas extraction- Friday, Jan. 19, 2018. More than 3,000 homes in Groningen prov- ous. of powerful clout."
ince are facing reinforcement or even in some cases demolition
caused earthquakes. because of a series of small tremors caused by decades of gas "It revolves around stress," "People aren't listening to
The quakes occur because extraction. he said. "We discovered us, haven't done that for
gas extraction lowers the (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) (that people) who have some time," he said.q
pressure in a layer of porous damage to their home
sandstone about 3 kilome- director of the Nether- the gas and so our cities initially are not too badly
ters (1.9 miles) below the lands Petroleum Company, have blossomed because affected. But over time —
Earth's surface. This causes known by its Dutch acro- of the gas money. And and especially if they have
layers in the sandstone to nym NAM, said. now we've gotten sort of multiple instances of dam-
be squashed together. But the government can't lazy, because every time age to their home — they
If this happens along natu- just order NAM to turn off that we want to change tend to get very upset."
ral fault lines in the rock, the gas extraction machin- something we realize that He said some 10,000 peo-
it can cause tension and ery that dots the flat Gron- our whole society is made ple have serious health is-
lead to sudden shifts. ingen landscape. Some 90 out of gas." sues caused by the stress.
"(The January quake) percent of Dutch homes Energy giants Shell and Esso Hans Warink, whose
makes crystal clear the use the gas and the gov- — now ExxonMobil — set up 25-year-old house in the vil-
ernment has long-term NAM in 1947. In 1959, NAM lage of Loppersum has un-