Environmental mitigation ideas- Rak Oil Spill

[Chandra Kishore]

Intersting story in Times of India on the bankrupcy of ideas during an environmental spill.

What would you have done differently as an environmetal expert?

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MUMBAI: While the authorities here fumble to get their act together on containing the Rak oil spill, they could learn a thing or two from the developed world on combating marine pollution. Not only do Indian agencies lack proper equipment, but also they suffer from chronic non-application of the mind.

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[T Raghavendra Rao]

The entire episode reeks of mismanagement, lack of ideas in tackling the spill. In any marine spill situation, ther are three steps to follow which are Isolation, treatment and mitigation. Isolation of a spill is achieved by laying a flaoting boom around the vessel that is leaking. The boom has to be laid at a distance around the vessel. oil being lighter than water tends to float and the boom retinas the leaking oil within the boundaries laid by the boom. The second step is the treatment. The most accepted method is to spread a dispersant eith in the powder form or a liquid form. Spraying of a few hundred liters of dispersant from a helicopter is not a solution as this a drop in the ocean and its targetless operationn. The dispersant has to be sprayed by the same vessel which lays the boom. In essence, the authorities should be equipped with well equipped fast moving vessels, which can move to the site quickly, lay a floating boom confing the sporead of spill to a limited area and pary the dispersant immediately and continue to spray till the leak is arrested. The third operation is kitigation. Due to wave action oil droplets break into smaller emulsions are form tar balls whic simk to the bottom. Subsequently bacterai consumes them. Another alternative is to spray an oil eating bacteria culture in liquid form to speed up the process. Also, there ar new techniques which disperses the tar balls when they sink and these new wax based dispersants should be tried. A more popular type of dispersant is an enacapsulating agent which will split the hydrocarbon chains into individual molecules and these molecules are ringed by a water ring making the hydrocarbons non-toxic to marine biology and ecology. These methods are expensive but must be a part of the spill control parapherneila that one must possess. Even if the spill reaches the beaches, there are methods to fight this and degrade the spill into non-toxic material fairly quickly. Sccoping the tar balls with spoons and brooms is not a solution and a sweeper with a basket can not scoop thousands of barrels of oil that comes ashore. We have to look at more modern, mechanical means to mitigate the spills.