After spill, red tape & rough sea
Kolkata   11-Aug-2010

Microbiologist Banwari Lal is waiting to help clean up the oil spill threatening the marine environment and the shores of Mumbai with a cocktail of oil-eating bacteria - but he has no invitation yet.

A rough monsoon sea has pushed the oil from the site of a collision between two cargo ships towards the shore but bureaucratic exchanges appear to be delaying the possible deployment of a clean-up technology developed years ago.

The August 7 collision caused the container vessel, MSC Chitra, to tilt dangerously, leaking fuel oil, and releasing about 150 containers into the sea. The incident involving a vessel that had about 2,600 tonnes of heavy oil and 245 tonnes of diesel oil has spurred a mammoth pollution control exercise by the coast guard.

Coast guard ships and aircraft have dropped more than 3,000 litres of special chemicals designed to disperse the oil spill, but the rough monsoon sea has handicapped the clean-up efforts.

Rough sea conditions and the rocky sea bottom, coast guard officials said, have prevented the use of booms - floating rubber structures that can prevent the oil from spreading away from the accident site.

Lal, a scientist at The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), New Delhi, has a bioremediation technology that uses dry powdered bacteria to clean up oil spills, developed nearly a decade ago in partnership with the IndianOil (IOC).

He said the coast guard informed him today that the oil spill had reached the shore, which is the jurisdiction of the state pollution control board. "We've been asked to contact the state board for bioremediation," Lal said.

Lal said he was surprised no one had so far contacted either Teri or IOC, which have earlier used the bioremediation bacteria at other sites in the country. "We can't move until we're called in," he said.

The Teri-IOC team, which had successfully cleaned up an oil spill-affected stretch of the coast near Paradip last year, can produce 1.5 tonnes of oil-digesting microbes each day. Up to 10kg bacteria can clean up a patch of oil across 10 square metres.

"But the bioremediation can be done only after an initial assessment of the affected site," said Deepak Tuli, general manager, research and development, IOC, New Delhi. "It's also a slow process - it takes about two months."

Lal said his research group had also developed in collaboration with an Australian university a new set of oil-digesting microbes for use in sea water, although this technology is still scheduled for field tests near Bombay High later this year.

The coast guard said today that a fishing ban had been imposed in the oil spill-affected area and the Maharashtra state pollution control board had been asked to begin actions for cleaning up the shore.

The coast guard, which had rescued 33 persons, including three women and two children from the Chitra, has discussed salvage operations to tow about 25 drifting containers and lift submerged containers using airbags.

Shipping authorities today moved to free up the navigation channel from two key Mumbai ports blocked by the drifting or submerged containers. An estimated 300-350 containers had fallen into the sea.

"At least 31 ships carrying oil as cargo are waiting to enter the port and 27 others are waiting to leave the port," Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, who chaired a high-level assessment meeting, said.

The Directorate-General of Shipping (DGS) claimed seepage of oil from the Chitra had stopped since afternoon yesterday. No seepage was expected if the ship remained stable, officials said.

"So far no container carrying hazardous goods has been sighted," a statement from the directorate said.

The officials said Singapore-based salvaging company SMIT International, hired for salvage efforts, had positioned an accommodation barge close to the Chitra to prevent more containers from falling into the sea.