Opinion: The Mining Council has no regard for the Groningers
A debate is raging over Groningen's resources. The Mining Council - an authoritative advisory body with extensive knowledge of mining - is urging the government to talk to Groningers about increasing gas production. This advice falls short in our opinion: the Mining Council is engaging in wishful thinking, forgets proven risks and ignores the reality of many Groningers.
In the past, safety policies in Groningen failed. According to the Dutch Safety Board, the safety of residents did not play a role in decisions. The cause of this negligence is an important question for the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Natural Gas Production Groningen.
The Mining Council now seems to forget these mistakes. Their advice is based on wishful thinking. A gas shortage is a nightmare for society and gas from Groningen is a fantasy solution. In the future there will be no more problems for Groningers either: “Groningers are entitled to a good and smooth reinforcement operation and damage settlement.” Here the “principles of proper open government must be applied.”
The reality in Groningen sometimes gets lost in the opinion. Groningers were always entitled to proper handling and proper governance. But the suggestion by NRC and NOS is that the administration around the natural wealth was closed and improper for a long time. And justice has not been done for a decade: according to State Secretary Hans Vijlbrief, things still go wrong too often. Residents have to wait too long or get into conflict with agencies over reinforcement and damage. This damages the health of many and causes social disruption. This problem could grow: 390,000 people live in the center of the area.
Inadequate consideration of above-ground consequences has a long history. Proper “monitoring” of consequences of gas production is a legal responsibility of NAM. But in the past much went wrong in this regard.
An anthology of errors. NAM long maintained that there were no earthquakes, even though Groningers had been feeling shocks since 1976. As far as the public knows, seismometers were only installed locally in 1986 to measure what was going on in the deep subsurface. The first officially recorded quake in the Groningen field was in 1991. Yet it wasn't until the late 1990s that accelerometers came along to measure above-ground ground motion. Until the Huizinge quake in 2012, there is no monitoring of damages and compensation: for decades, we know nothing about the above-ground effects of all quakes except for a single newspaper report. There seems to be a pattern of ignoring, misunderstanding and downplaying above-ground consequences.
It got even more bizarre when an observant foreign researcher noted in 2018 that the measurements were wrong. Looking through the reports, it turned out that only 4 of 110 accelerometers were properly adjusted. Almost all of the meters underestimated the actual ground motion. Residents said “it vibrated violently” but according to most meters it was only half as bad. Meanwhile, we know that the average resident feels very accurately how violently the soil is vibrating. If they had been listened to earlier, much suffering could have been saved.
The mining law still makes the industry responsible for safety and monitoring. So when NAM drills a new field in Ternaard, it keeps control and tries to convince residents that this is familiar. That can be done differently. In the case of salt extraction in Harlingen, the company monitors subsidence in collaboration with local residents, government authorities and SSM. Several parties keep a hand on the tap. The entrepreneur relinquishes a lot of control, but gets support in return.
The Mining Council also sees residents as inadequate in another way. This is because of its narrow definition of safety: it is unsafe if there are casualties due to collapse. Whether it is livable in the homes above the gas bubble plays no role. That's bizarre. If a resident lives for years with struts in the living room, or is forced to live in a construction shack in the yard, then safety is “at standard.” Research shows that thousands are unsafe and powerless because of years of tug-of-war with agencies over damage and strengthening. And tens of thousands feel unsafe in their own homes because they keep finding damage that, crack by crack, demolishes their homes. The Mining Council should factor this unsafe reality into its advice.
Finally, the Mining Council ignores essential conditions for responsible extraction. NAM and the government should work well together. But that is not the case at the moment: the oils and the state differ so sharply on how to handle problems that arbitration is needed. There is every appearance that they are engaged in a fighting divorce. Still, the Mining Council recommends proceeding for a while longer.
In short: gas extraction from the Groningen field has demonstrable drawbacks. The Mining Council prefers to ignore them and does not seem to be learning from the past. Real problems of residents are still underestimated. That is unwise, feeds distrust and reduces support for other mining activities.
Authors: Nienke Busscher and Tom Postmes
1 Zie Mijnraadadvies borgen van leveringszekerheid in actuele gascrisis, 1 juni 2022 en
https://nos.nl/artikel/2431734-mijnraad-bereid-groningen-voor-op-verhoging-gaswinning
2 Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid, 2015. Zie Aardbevingsrisico's in Groningen: Onderzoek naar de rol van veiligheid
van burgers in de besluitvorming over gaswinning (1959-2004)
3 Zie het nieuws van NRC over de strijd tussen NAM en rijk rond versterking en het nieuws van NOS over de wijze
waarop werd besloten om in 2013 meer gas te winnen dan was voorzien, terwijl SodM had gewaarschuwd dat de
winning omlaag moest
4 Interview Hans Vijlbrief, 11 juni 2022, Dagblad van het Noorden. https://dvhn.nl/groningen/%E2%80%98Het-is-
erger-dan-ik-dacht-nu-ik-zie-wat-het-veroorzaakt-bij-mensen%E2%80%99-27751098.html
5 https://www.groningsperspectief.nl/rapport-januari-2022/
6 https://www.kennisplatformleefbaar.nl/stand-van-kennis-2021
7 Dit is gebaseerd op het aantal woningen binnen de toenmalige NAM contour, zie o.m. Gronings Perspectief
(2020). Door schade wijzer: Het proces van schademeldingen en haar geschiedenis.
8 Andeweg, B. (2013). Geografie, p. 6-9.
9 Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid, 2015. Zie Aardbevingsrisico's in Groningen: Onderzoek naar de rol van veiligheid
van burgers in de besluitvorming over gaswinning (1959-2004)
10 Zie de eindevaluatie van SodM Validatie van het seismisch netwerk van het KNMI in Groningen (eindrapportage)
| Rapport | Staatstoezicht op de Mijnen
11 Zie Gronings Perspectief (2020). Door schade wijzer: Het proces van schademeldingen en haar geschiedenis
12 Zie onder meer de eindevaluatie van SodM Validatie van het seismisch netwerk van het KNMI in Groningen
(eindrapportage) | Rapport | Staatstoezicht op de Mijnen, alsmede de tussentijdse rapportage
knmi-groningen. De feiten over de onachtzame fouten bij de installatie en operatie van het meetnetwerk en het
rekenen met de resultaten ervan staan niet in het persbericht maar wel in de tekst van de ruim 20 onderzoeken
over deze kwestie en de rapporten van SodM zelf.
13 https://www.groningsperspectief.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Zeerijprapport_definitief.pdf
14 https://www.verwey-jonker.nl/publicatie/casusonderzoek-maatschappelijke-onrust-noord-nederland-bij-
overheidsbeslissingen/