Top: Golden Veroleum Liberia has failed to provide hand pumps for communities who own the land the company develops. The DayLight/Esau Farr

By Matenneh Keita

DU-WOLEE, Sinoe County – Nimely Teah, an 80-something-year-old great-grandfather has two problems. At his farm in Teah Village, rainwater allegedly laced with chemicals from a Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) palm plantation runs into a creek he uses for drinking, cooking and washing.  In Panama, a large neighborhood where he lives, there is just one hand pump, and the creeks are far away.

“I want to sue GVL so, we can go to the court for the water business,” Teah told The DayLight at his farm. “They say I must die from the germs.”

Teah is one of thousands whose water sources have been polluted by the GVL oil palm plantation. GVL, Liberia’s largest oil Palm company signed a 65-year agreement with the Liberian government covering 220,000 hectares of land in Sinoe, Grand Kru, Maryland, River Cess and River Gee in a deal worth US$1.6 billion. GVL also signed individual MoUs with landowning communities, including Du-Wolee Nyennue Township in Kpanyan District, Sinoe County.

The Du-Wolee Nyennue MoU was signed in 2016, two years after GVL’s concession. The MoU guarantees the company more than 2,367 hectares of land. However, it obligates GVL to build hand pumps for populations between 25 and 150 people affected by its operations, among other things.

But a DayLight investigation found that GVL has not constructed mandatory hand pumps in the townships, violating the MoU. All of the old hand pumps the company renovated stopped working years back and have not been repaired.

Panama, the largest of its affected communities in Du-Wolee Nyennue, with some 2,000 people, is the most telling. GVL has not built a hand pump in the community, according to residents. The one the company renovated is insufficient for the population, residents say.  

“When GVL came, they told us they did some inventory on the water system. They said even some of our community pumps that were built by some NGOs, they were going to rehabilitate them,” said Anthony Jerboe, a community leader in Panama. “But since that time, they have not come to the community, and we are suffering from water issues.”

Locals have used creeks for generations as the only source of drinking water in the communities, The DayLight gathered.

But there is a problem with the creeks, too. Fertilizer from palm trees is washed into the creeks, residents say. This is even worse during the dry season when the water table drops, leaving townspeople with no other alternatives.

“We will just continue to drink it because there is no safe drinking water,” said George Sebeh, a resident of Panama and Old Man Teah’s son-in-law.

Sebeh was speaking to reporters in Teah Village, where reporters accompanied a villager to fetch water from the creek Old Man Teah had mentioned in his interview.

Empty palm husks

These accusations of water pollution are credible. A 2016 study by the Ghanaian Sync Consultant Limited found GVL polluted drinking water sources. Two years later, another study by Liberia’s Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) uncovered the same thing. In the eight years of its operations in Du-Wolee Nyennue, GVL has ignored these reports.

The situation in Zinc Camp is nearly the same, though GVL erected a hand pump there. Residents of the uphill community, which hosts a small-scale palm farm, cannot drink the water the hand pump produces.

“We boil the handpump water and bath with it,” said Kojay Glay, the chairlady of the community. “I’ve been here for three years. In those three years, I have not seen GVL come here to work on the hand pump.” Glay’s comments were corroborated by other Zinc Camp residents.

Due to the condition of the facility, the people of Zinc Camp fetch water from creeks. Initially, they were near the creek but now they walk a distance of between 15 and 20 minutes. Water from GVL’s empty palm husks—used as fertilizer—allegedly flows into creeks nearby, polluting them.

“We used to drink all of the creeks before the coming of GVL. Because of the palm, we can’t drink from everywhere in the creek. There are certain areas that you go to before you can drink the water,” said Wilfred Toboe, Zinc Camp’s General Town Chief. 

Empty husks or empty fruit bunches (EFB) contain nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and sulfur. While the other gases are harmless, sulfur can be harmful, based on its concentration, scientists say.

‘Bad’ water situation

While the rainy season is good news for Panama and Zinc Camp, it is a nightmare for Blue Barrack and Mamakre.

Like Panama, GVL has not constructed any hand pump in Blue Barrack, according to residents. All five of the ones there were constructed by NGOs but are not in use, as verified by The DayLight.

Its 7,065 people depend on a creek, mainly during the dry season. During the rainy season, groundwater from the town’s main route—GVL often reconditions—seeps into the creek, residents say.

“Sometimes during meetings, we inform GVL. They can say, ‘Yes we will do it,’ but GVL doesn’t have time for Du-Wolee,” said Augustine Myers, Blue Barrack’s tribal chairman. Other residents The DayLight interviewed supported Myers’ story.

The DayLight could not independently verify Myers’ erosion-pollution claim. However, reporters photographed some of the spoiled hand pumps.

For Mamakre, GVL built a hand pump there but has needed repairing for about three years now, according to residents. The DayLight photographed the broken-down hand pump, its borehole sealed with sticks likely to protect children.

Mamakre’s creeks are also polluted due to erosion on the town’s main road paved and maintained by GVL.

“This water situation was alright when GVL never came,” said Anthony Tarpeh, the General Town Chief. “Since the GVL, the water situation is bad.”

Tarpeh said people, particularly children, were getting sick from drinking water from the creek this rainy season. Naomi Doe, Blue Barrack’s co-chairlady, had made the same accusation.  

James Otto, a lead campaigner with the Margibi-based Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), blames GVL for the water situation. Otto believes the company was unaware of the scale of the problem because it did not hold MoU-required quarterly meetings.

“I think there is a total breakdown in the way the company engages with the communities,” Otto said in a Montserrado interview.

“I think the hand pump is just one example but there are many other things.”The water problem in the landowning, affected communities does not only violate the company’s MoUs and concession. It breaches a principle of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the watchdog of the global oil palm industry.

The principle calls on member firms to “respect community and human rights and deliver benefits.” GVL is a member of the RSPO through its parent company Golden Agri-Resources Ltd of Singapore.

GVL dodged questions for comments on the water situation in its project-affected communities. However, said in an email it was committed to its obligations. The company said it had worked with communities to provide clarity and timelines for resolution in cases where commitments are disputed or have not yet been fulfilled,” GVL said in an email.

Back in Du-Wolee Nyennue, people want GVL to build or repair hand pumps. Glay of Zinc Camp, Sebeh of Panama,  Kumeh of Mamakre and Myers of Blue Barrack hope it happens soon.

“I will appreciate when GVL [builds] the hand pump,” said  Old Man Teah of Teah Village. “I’m tired of drinking fertilizer water.”  

[Konwroh Wesseh and an anonymous resident of Sinoe contributed to this report]

The Green Livelihoods Alliance (GLA) provided funding for this story. The DayLight maintained editorial independence over the story’s content.