Guimaras 8/11 and 'anaconda boom'
Looking like movieworld's giant monster anaconda,
Guimaras' anaconda boom" lay still at the grounds
of the Jordan Municipal Hall waiting to be hauled to
the sea. (Jo M Clemente)
Jordan, Guimaras -- If New Yorkers have "9/11", Guimarasnons have "8/11". The first is the Sept 11, 2001 tragedythat leveled off one of the world's tallest building to ground zero. The latter is the August 11, 2006 oil spill disaster that brought above sea level, the toxic bunker C fuel carried by a sunken ship--the worst ever in Philippine maritime history.
And while Guimarasnons are quick to draw parallelism to these two man-made disasters, they remain undaunted in their search for the most suitable entrapment that will prevent the oil sludge now coming to the unaffected portions of the island province from getting into their shores.
In Jordan, Guimaras' capital town, the answer is an oil spill trap they call the "anaconda boom." According to Mayor Felipe "Nene" Nava, it is called as that because "it looks like the huge anaconda but it is the best entrapment so far we have had after experimenting on various models" And while movieworld's anaconda scares the wits out of people, Guimaras' anaconda lends a sense of security, he said.
The "anaconda boom" is a preventive trap laid out at sea so that oil sludge will not reach the shores. It is made up of hay rolled in fishing nets and stuffed with used plastic bottles inside as floaters. The boom is one foot in diameter and stretches to as far as what the shorelines require. Nava says they had tried other local materials like abaca but the fiber disintegrates easily and thus can not trap the oil. Other materials, he said, are too hard that they break off from wave pressures.
"The combination of hay and plastic bottles as floaters rolled to at least a foot in diameter is the best we have so far, the rolled hay sways with the waves but it does not allow oil to spill over, " Nava said.
Jordan was not directly hit by the oil spill but Nava said they do not want to wait for another wave of the black oil before they fence out their shores. All of Jordan's 5 kilometer belt of coves and critical shorelines that includes the Turtle Sanctuary are now fenced by "anaconda boom".