Grounded oil tanker still presents environmental threat

A tanker which ran aground just off the coast of the southern port city of Karachi is now being held together with inflatable booms to ensure that the remainder of its cargo of crude oil can be siphoned off by local crews and international consultants so as to avert further damage to the marine environment. "The salvage operation might take a few more days. The ship has broken into two distinct parts and we estimate there is still a reasonably large quantity of oil left on board. We’re trying to take that out," Brig Iftikhar Arshad, the general manager of the Karachi Port Trust, told IRIN from Karachi. The Greek-registered Tasman Spirit, which veered off course and ran aground on 27 July, initially carried about 67,000 mt. More than 15,000 mt spilled into the sea following the high-velocity impact, causing a huge oil slick that spread quickly across a large portion of the coastline and caused a popular beach along a thickly populated shorefront to be closed to the public after it was swamped by a thick layer of oil. Barges and other ships periodically hove to alongside the stricken ship to help divest it of its contents before the hull collapsed under the pounding of heavy tides. But authorities were forced to rethink their strategy when one of the salvage vessels damaged its keel, after which the Tasman Spirit finally broke apart over the weekend. "Yes, the tanker has broken apart now. It is clearly in two distinct pieces," Arshad said, adding that he expected the entire cleanup operation to be completed within a few days. Environmentalists had earlier voiced fears about an envisaged huge loss of marine life, as well as long-term health problems for seafront residents, who were exposed directly to toxic fumes arising from the oil-draped beach. Karachi’s rich mangrove forests were also said to be threatened by the rapidly travelling oil slick. "It’s too early to say what kind of impact the spill will have. The major impact is obviously on marine life: we’ve seen many dead fish already, but these are just visible effects," Dr Ijaz Ahmed, the deputy director-general of the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan, told IRIN from Karachi, pointing out that a comprehensive assessment of the damage needed to be made to figure out the long-term effects of the spill on the environment. The wind appeared to be pushing the oil away from ecologically sensitive areas, he said. "The turtle beaches [where rare species such as the Green Turtle and the Olive Ridley Turtle] come to lay their eggs each year lie to the west of the spill and the wind is blowing the slick away from them," Ahmed said. It was, however, a critical time for the mangroves, which were already seeding. "The seeds have been damaged by the oil carried along by tides. The trees are OK, but the seedlings have not been so lucky," he warned, adding that he hoped the crisis would be over before bird migrations, which usually occur towards the middle of September, and the turtle nesting season started in earnest. There were still positives to be sought within the murky gloom that had descended into the depths of the Arabian sea and its surrounding environs, Hugh Parker, a technical manager with the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, told IRIN from Karachi. "This has been a very unfortunate incident, but we’ve still been quite lucky given the quantity of oil that’s been lost. Most of it ended up on beaches and, even with the oil still in the water, there’s only a small area that’s been affected," Parker, who has had over 20 years experience of handling similar spills across the world, said. The cleanup operation was designed to handle spillages much more quickly, but international crews working in tandem with local authorities had faced operational difficulties because of bad weather and high-speed winds, he said, adding that he thought there were just over 9,500 mt left aboard the ship.