Oil Slick in Bay

Source still in dark

15 December 2011, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent, Ctg

Though oil slick in the Bay off Sitakunda upazila are often noticed by the locals, the actual source of such spills is yet to be identified. Informed about the Tuesday's huge oil spills in the Bay off Kumira coast and Kadamrasul coast in the upazila, a team of the Department of Environment (DoE) visited the area in the afternoon only found a 100-metre wide layer of oil floating on the water. But the team failed to identify the source of oil slick in the area where a number of ships are now beached for dismantling at over 50 ship-breaking yards. Locals, including boatmen, fishermen and the people travelling between Chittagong and Sandwip, often notice such small and large scale oil spills in the Bay of the same area. They suspect ships brought for dismantling in the ship-breaking yards might be responsible for such spills. But the yard owners have been denying such allegation. Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association (BSBA) President Hefazatur Rahman said the ship-breakers are not responsible for oil slick. About the Tuesday's spill, DoE Chittagong Director Jafar Alam told The Daily Star that the ship-breakers usually sell waste oil of scraped ships at a good price and they even don't waste a single drop of oil. Jafar, however, said it is heard that a section of people are engaged in stealing oil from the vessels anchored at the outer anchorage of Chittagong port and they bring the oil in drums on engine boats or lighter vessels through the route and unloaded the oil at Fouzderhat for selling. He suspected any drum from those boats could be dropped during such shifting that led the oil spills.