Since 1959 the Netherlands have been sourcing natural Gas through a company (NAM) from under the feet of the people of Groningen. This has been a success story for more than 50 years. Working in the Natural Gas Industry was something to be proud of.
Then came the earthquakes. In the province of Groningen people started seeing cracks in their homes. It took years to get the Dutch government and the NAM to acknowledge the root cause of the problem, the mining of natural Gas. The government decided to handle the situation, but nothing much happened. The inhabitants of Groningen that were effected sometimes had to leave their home for years.
In short, the government failed their people as was acknowledged: Between 2021 and 2023, the Dutch House of Representatives conducted a parliamentary survey on the extraction of natural gas in the Groningen field and the long-term problems that resulted from this. The aim of this survey was to gain insight into the decision-making process on natural gas extraction, earthquakes, damage handling and reinforcement.
The Groningen Archives (Groninger Archieven) has made it company policy to document everything about the mining of Natural Gas, the good years and the bad.
We have hundreds of 16mm films of the early years of Gasunie (an energy network operator. In the Netherlands. We also preserve oral history interviews. The interviews reflect the early years as well as the end years of this period. The interviews are conducted by a foundation, Ooggetuigen van de geschiedenis (Eye witnesses of history).
We were an advising party, as well as the preserving and publicising party. We want the stories of the people to be part of this archive, researchable online, and we think that we can add to truth finding and our work can help relieve the trauma of the effected people by letting them be part of the archive. Actual people with a voice and a story.
The talk will be about our future plans and idea’s for an inclusive approach to archiving.
