Navy sailors and students volunteer for spill clean-up II
Mumbai   29-Aug-2010

The second phase of clean-up operations post oil spill at Navy Nagar, INS Kunjali was successfully conducted on Saturday by The Energy and Resource Institute (Teri) along with the active co-operation of IndianOil (IOCL), the Indian Navy and officials from Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB).

300 Bharat Scout and Guide cadets from Kendriya Vidyalaya also pitched in.

Teri had undertaken a similar clean up at Awas beach in Alibaug last week.

The bio-remediation process at the 500m restricted stretch started during the low tide hour of 6am and concluded at 11am.

"The Indian Navy provided us with 125 navy sailor volunteers. The scout and guide cadets also helped us. However, this was one of the most challenging sites as we had to mop up spilt oil from slippery rocks. The volunteers had to manually scrub the rocks with cotton waste and it was then dumped inside the bio-remediation pit located 200m away at a substantial height above the high tide level," said Dr Banwari Lal, director, Teri.

For the clean up of oil-soaked sand and rocks lining the coast, around 2,000kg of Oilzapper was used. The Oilzapper is a consortium of crude oil and oily sludge degrading bacteria which, over a timeframe of two to four months, eat up the contaminants and convert them into carbon dioxide while cleaning up the surrounding area without leaving any harmful residue.

Senior scientists from Teri, IOCL and MPCB willmonitor the bio-remediation process for the next two months.

"Weekly samples will be taken and tested at Teri, MPCB and IOCL's laboratories to monitor the progress of the bio-remediation process," added Lal, who's in Mumbai to oversee the operation.

However, the operation will continue for some more time as the oil spill is huge. "It is the most contaminated site. We will do a similar operation next weekend with the Indian Navy.

The oil sludge has penetrated deeper inside and covered the whole area. On Saturday, we were able to cover around 75% of that area," he said.

Meanwhile, the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has surveyed the damage caused to the soil in some of the stretches with mangrove cover at Vashi andSewri.

A preliminary report will be submitted to the environment department by next month.