Oil discharge pollutes
Goan coastline
Sandesh Prabhudesai
14 May 2001
Oil ships passing off Goa coast from the
Middle East to the Far East have posed a serious threat of
marine pollution along the Goan coastline, affecting the tourism
industry here.
Thanks to the blatant violation of MARPOL
guidelines by the oil tankers, the famous beaches of Calangute,
Candolim, Baga etc have literally turned black with tar balls
spread all over the coastline.
The study carried out by the Goa Environment
and Ecology Trust reveals that the merchant tankers sailing
at a distance of around 150 nautical miles from the western
coast have been discharging unpumpable heavy sediments of
oil settled at the bottom of the cargo tanks, exploiting Arabian
sea as the dumping ground.
While this oil gets of a form of globules
once it mixes with the sand, it moves to the shore with southwest
pre-monsoon and monsoon winds start blowing from March till
September.
Discharging oil near the shore at night time
in violation of international norms is a world phenomena today.
But it may be more visible on Goan coast this year, feel marine
scientists, due to the 'River Princess' ship, grounded hardly
50 metres away from the Candolim coast, which also had
an oil spill.
"It is mainly due to these vessels who violate
the MARPOL guidelines", states Joaquim R D'Souza, the marine
scientist and project co-ordinator for the GEET. He blames
the authorities for not making a legislation to implement
strict guidelines of the International Maritime Organisation,
to penalise and prosecute the violators.
Besides affecting the fish, Dr Joe D'Souza,
an environmentalist, says that these pollutants can cause
skin infection, eye irritation and diseases like dysentery,
stomach problems and even cancer due to Benzopyrenes released
from this oil.
Chief minister Manohar Parrikar, after inspecting
the site personally last week, has ordered physical cleaning
of the beaches in order to avoid the next immediate threat
of the tar balls going back to the sea.
D'Souza however suggests more effective remedies,
including strict vigil by the Coast Guard, random inspection
of oil record books by the Port State Control Inspectors,
co-ordinating such checks with other Asian countries as well
as satellite surveillance.
In addition, the GEET has also written to
Dr R A Mashelkar, the renowned scientist heading Goa's Infotech
Council, suggesting hydro-carbon finger printing technology
as it can identify which vessel has released the oil near
the seashore.
"The only solution to it is to etiquette
the people by creating awareness", states Cmdt. V S R Murthy,
the Coast Guard commandant, though he does not deny that rules
and modern technology cannot control it. "But that is not
an ultimate solution", he feels.
While etiquetting people requires a world-wide
movement to save the marine life and tourist states like Goa,
the local authorities are presently not doing anything more
than cleaning up the beaches.
Incidentally, Goa plans to sell rain drops
to the Gulf countries during the monsoons, while the oil from
their place is the only hazard the tourist state is facing
today !
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