As the country’s oil and gas sector continues to expand, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ensured that the necessary guidelines are followed by industry operators regarding the protection of the environment and citizens.
To further ensure this safety is guaranteed, the EPA has invested in high quality monitoring equipment.
One such piece of equipment is the Agency’s new ‘Pack Eye Radiation Detection Backpack’ which is able to identify and monitor radiation levels in the air. This device values some $2M.
During a recent media engagement, EPA’s Environmental Officer Gwenetta Fordyce explained that “with the emerging oil and sector, the country has seen an influx of industrial activities as it relates to use of industrial radiographers, radioactive sources, quite a lot of the support companies for the oil and gas sector generally bring in radioactive material.”
“Now this backpack…it allows us to know what radiation levels the General public may be exposed to,” she added.
The equipment also ensures that companies both onshore and offshore are keeping in compliance and are not harming humans and the environment.
“Guyana is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, so we have received this backpack to aid in our regulatory infrastructure to ensure that we are capable of adhering or ensuring compliance or companies are able to adhere to international best practices to ensure compliance with radiation levels and not necessarily causing harm to human health and the environment.”
The device has already been used at four sites onshore but is yet to be used offshore due to the constraints of the Covid 19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, Fordyce explained that even before operators who wish to import radioactive material onshore, can do so, they must receive authorisation from the EPA or the Customs Department.
“Our authorisation process when they come in, they are issued with an environmental authorisation or environmental permit. In the environmental permit, there are conditions that these companies must adhere to and once found not in compliance when we do our compliance checks, it’s an issue,” she stated.
“Before even coming into the country, the Agency requests a material safety agreement whereby the company has to demonstrate or they have to show in writing legally, that these waste materials, once their life would have expired, it has to be returned to the manufacturer; if not the manufacturer, the company that it’s actually coming from, because in country, we do not have the capacity to deal with radioactive waste,” she reasoned.
According to Fordyce, so far, all companies importing radioactive material have been in compliance.
