CHENNAI: Probably for the first time after the oil spill was reported on January 28 resulting in a major environmental disaster, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) on Friday expressed helplessness and said containment measures failed to yield the desired result.
The board submitted this before the southern bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), when the tribunal admitted another application filed by environmentalist and advocate Saravan Dakshnamurthy on the Ennore oil spill.
The spill was caused due to the collision of two ships near the Kamarajar Port, Ennore. Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board counsel Yasmeen Ali said 72 tonnes of oil slick had been removed so far and the dispersants used by Coast Guard proved to be ineffective.
The bench, comprising Justice P Jyothimani and expert member P S Rao, was alarmed and asked what the difficulty was in finding out the exact quantity of spillage from the ship company.
“We feel quantum of spillage has been bizarrely underplayed. If 72 tonnes of slick has already been removed, how can anyone claim that there was only 20 tonnes of oil leakage. There would be at least 100 tonnes of oil spill,” the bench noted.
Counsel said all emergency services of various department had been activated. They were putting their best foot forward to bring the situation under control. She also admitted that the super suckers and submersible machines deployed were not of much help because they were removing more water than the pollutant. “We had to fall back on the manual removal and have engaged over 1,200 personnel for the job,” she told the bench.
The petitioner submitted photographs that showed oil slick floating five nautical miles inside the sea. The tribunal noted that the clean-up activity lacked a scientific approach. It posted the matter for February 20 after directing the board to submit the status report on remediation on that date.
Coast Guard seeks IIT-M help
The Coast Guard has sought Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras’s help for analysing the samples of pollutant. Indumathi M Nambi, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Division, told Express that the Coast Guard will be providing more samples for analysis and asked for a report.
Meanwhile, Integrated Coastal and Marine Area Management Project Directorate (ICMAM PD) in the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) campus has also collected samples from the sea. They were sent to IIT for analysis.
MV Ramam Murthy, Head of ICMAM and specialist in integrated coastal zone management plans and ecology modelling, is carrying out the research.