Oil spill in troubled waters

  • 03/10/2009

  • Sahara Times (New Delhi)

Oil spill in the Bay of Bengal spells doomsday for breeding of Ridley turtles The worst fears of environmentalists appear to have come true with reports of an oil leak from MV Black Rose, the Mongolian ship that sank off Paradeep coast in Orissa on the 9th of September. The ship was carrying about 926 tonnes (926,000 litres) of furnace oil. Concerns rose, following sighting of a layer of oil over the surface of sea water and dead fishes on the beach near Paradeep on September 21. In the wake of the ship's sinking, environmentalists like Biswajit Mohanty, who happens to be the secretary of Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) had warned that oil spillage from the ship could spell doom for the endangered Olive Ridley turtles, which have their largest rookery at the Gahirmatha beach, not far from Paradeep. Lakhs of Olive Ridley turtles breed in the onshore waters near Gahirmatha and then lay eggs on the beach every year in a phenomenon known as Aribada in Spanish. Though, Orissa has two other turtle nesting sites at Rishikuya and Devi river mouths, the focus is invariably on Gahirmatha as it happens to be the world's largest rookery for these marine creatures. With the onset of turtles' nesting season, anxiety is bound to grow. What environmentalists fear the most is the destruction of the Olive Ridley turtles' food stock by the oil spillage. However, Paradeep Port officials, who are still investigating the matter, are not too sure whether the reported oil spillage is from the Black Rose which sunk because of alleged overloading of iron ore. "Had it been from that ship, oil should have been seen around the ship, which is not the case. It could have been from some other source," said Biplav Kumar, deputy chairman of Paradeep Port Trust. Sources said, while the owners of the vessel do not appear to be worried about the consequences, with the ship remaining buried in the sea water for a long time, the local authorities are yet to take any major steps for pumping out the oil from its tank. This is imperative to prevent the spillage of oil. As it is, more than 90 ships have sunk in the Bay of Bengal in the last 25 years but nobody seems to have paid any attention to the threat of oil leaking from the tanks of these vessels. Experts say this indifference is primarily on account of the general perception, that sealed oil tanks would not leak and even if they do, they were unlikely to cause much harm. "This, however, is a wrong perception because the seal cannot remain in place forever. Besides, small or big, if so many tanks leak then marine life is bound to be threatened. The real problem is that not much technical expertise