GULF: Diesel Spill On UAE Coast Affects Water Supply

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ahmad Mardini

ABU DHABI, Jul 19 1997 (IPS) - A diesel slick from a damaged tanker in the Gulf has forced authorities to shut down a water desalination plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and panicked people.

The plant producing 20 million gallons of water daily is the main source of water for the 500,000 people of Sharjah, the third largest Emirate in the UAE federation.

Sharjah remained partially without water on Sunday since the pumping of water from Al-Layah desalination plant could not be resumed because of the spill. Companies supplying drinking water, which can be bought in the UAE, reported a high demand for canned water, while many Sharjah residents, armed with jerrycans, were seen scouring the city looking for water, newspapers reported.

The 75 metre-long barge ‘Safa 255’ had spilled some 2,500 tonnes of its diesel cargo into Gulf waters by Sunday as a salvage operation got under way to close manhole covers to the barge’s 18 tanks and refloat the stranded vessel.

Sharjah Municipality officials told IPS that the barge has since been towed away and the source of pollution was sealed. No more diesel was escaping from the barge, they said.

The smell of diesel was strong around the accident site, but the sea appeared clear, while the rocks on the beachfront had begun to lose the coating of oil.

The UAE-registered barge lost control and beached off the coast of Sharjah, after its tow-rope, attached to a tug that was hauling the barge, snapped on Friday in strong winds.

The UAE gets most of its water from desalination plants on its long coastline. It has some underground reserves, but it is not enough for the growing population and industry in this oil-rich Gulf state. According to a recent study, by the year 2015 the UAE will require 600 million gallons of water daily, with desalination plants providing 70 percent.

Beaches across the UAE’s northern Gulf coast face a problem from oil dumped by ships travelling in the strategic Gulf waterway, the world’s busiest. The UAE has taken the lead in the region to draw up a blueprint for the preservation of the environment in the new millennium, a two-year project that is being undertaken with the help of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Marine experts said that the environmental damage and threat to the Gulf’s diverse marine life, which includes green turtles and dolphins, was minimal in Friday’s accident because temperatures of more than 38 degrees celsius had caused a large part of the diesel to evaporate.

However, Gulf environmentalists expressed their concern about the effect of diesel pollution on the coral reefs. Also fishermen were asked by local authorities to stop fishing along the Sharjah and Ajman coastline unless the oil slick was completely cleared.

Shippers say that diesel, unlike crude oil or heavy fuel oil, is a light petroleum product which remains close to the water surface and forms a light film capable of being broken down and evaporated by the sun, rough seas and oceans winds.

The UAE’s largest oil spill was in 1994 when 16,000 tonnes of Iranian crude oil caused serious damage to the country’s eastern coastline and its important fishing industry.

Residents fled Fujairah town, the tiny UAE emirate on the Gulf of Oman in the Indian Ocean, returning only after the spill was cleared with the use of chemicals in a huge operation.

In 1996, the UAE’s Federal Environmental Authority completed work on eight draft laws on the protection of local environment, including water resources and marine and wildlife.

More than 30,000 oil tankers and merchant ships pass through the strategic Straits of Hormuz every year to transport crude and other commodities from the Gulf, which supplies nearly a quarter of the world’s oil.

The Gulf states — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE — who are grouped together in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) recently introduced several kinds of fines for ships caught dumping oil sludge, industrial waste, polluted water and other harmful materials into their territorial waters and on to their beaches.

The new laws permit GCC authorities to board any national or foreign vessel to check compliance with environment rules, which also stipulate the carrying of anti-pollution equipment on board. Tankers are banned from illegally dumping sludge in Gulf waters, and in case of an accident, the ship’s owner is usully held responsible for the cost of stopping the spillage and fighting pollution.

Last April, a delegation from the European Union helped GCC officials complete a feasibility study to set up infrastructure to deal with ballast from ships and preserve the marine environment. Gulf experts are calling for a more serious and collective effort by Gulf states to check marine pollution.