Alarm up as oil slick reaches 4 Iloilo towns
Emergency meetings were called yesterday as last-minute containment efforts were drawn and clean-up drive firmed up in the Province of Iloilo. This, after five coastal municipalities were reported to have now been affected by the dreaded oil slick, putting fishery resources, fishponds, mangroves and reefs in imminent danger.
The coastal towns all in northern Iloilo -- Ajuy, Concepcion, Barotac Nuevo, and the latest addition, Dumangas have now convened its respective Municipal Disaster Coordinating Councils (MDCC). Daily spill updates were sought as southern Iloilo towns go on similar heightened alert.
In Barotac Nuevo, operations of over 4,000 hectares in fishponds are threatened with oil slick now affected the coastal barangay of Lanas. Said town is also home to mangroves and continued rehabilitation efforts of the Banate Bay.
In Concepcion, slick reached the shores of Pulopiña Island with fisherfolks here all dependent on marginal fishing.
The spill as feared reached northern Iloilo shores, ten days after ill-fated M/T Solar I submerged south of Guimaras.
Concepcion Mayor Raul Banias told a radio interview yesterday morning that the shoreline of isles in his town were already blanketed with oil sheens. He has already advised kids to keep off the beaches. The Iloilo provincial capitol has also made preparations for the oil spill.
The News Today (TNT) gathered that some 200 liters per hour are spilt from the submerged tanker or an estimated 4,800 liters of bunker fuel a day. With over 2 million liters on board, the tanker if not salvaged from the accident site will continue to spill oil in at least one year.
Based on surface water circulation this month, the spill spreads some 1.25 meter per second or 10.8 kilometers daily.
"The oil spill is spreading at a very fast rate," Philippine Coast Guard Iloilo commander Harold Jarder stressed.
Gavin Newman, an industrial diver traveling with Greenpeace International which came to the site early this week, described the Guimaras oil spill as 'a classic ecological timebomb.'
"If nothing is done, the ship will rust, the ship will disintegrate, and all the oil will be released. So maybe in a 20-years time, you'll have another disaster in your hands. Somebody has to do something about it," he pointed out.
He suggested that the bunker oil left in the hold of the sunken tanker be suctioned off to prevent the 'ecological timebomb' from going off.
"In 20-30 years time, you could have oil all over your beaches again," he said.
Newman suggested that the first thing that should be done is to survey the ship, and "again, the only way to do that is with remote vehicles or submersibles to find out what's the condition of the ship."
And while Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes said that re-floating the ship is still possible, it will "be an extremely difficult and very expensive exercise," Newman pointed out. "Salvaging the ship is possible but recovering it would actually damage it further."
He observed that when the sunken Russian submarine Kursk was brought to the surface from under 120 meters of water, it took salvors three and a half months.
"I'm not a salvage expert in deep waters, I salvage ships in shallow waters, but to do something in a thousand meters deep of water takes very, very heavy equipment and very specialized equipment," he opined.
At present, PCG vessels Edsa Dos, Ilocos Norte, Davao del Norte, San Juan and Pampanga, plus two smaller vessels, are in the area containing what is the now becoming the country's worst oil spill.
(With Ronilo L. Pamonag)