Preventing oil spill into rivers

A massive oil slick in the Meghna River is posing a serious threat to hilsa fish sanctuary, aquatic life and causing extensive damage to the biodiversity after crude oil leaked into the river water on Sunday. This is not the first incident of oil spill in the country. It happened several times in the past. We hoped the government would be alert enough to stop recurrence of such incidents.

Eight years back oil spill from a crashed tanker threatened the endangered dolphins and other wildlife in the Sundarbans mangrove area. Environment experts and even the government officials then termed it an ecological catastrophe. The tanker was carrying 3, 50, 000 liters of oil when it collided with another vessel in the Shela River of the Sundarbans region. The oil spilt as the tanker partially sank in the river water.

In another similar incident in the Karnaphuli River a massive oil spill in 2019 put hundreds of fish species and endangered dolphins in danger. The diesel spill in the Karnafhuli River was also a threat to the local biodiversity. Especially it posed a serious threat to Ganges River dolphins.

This time the tanker hit by another vessel was carrying 11 lakh liters of fuel. The amount of diesel and octane is huge. Fishermen of the nearby areas are soaking their towel and cloths with spilt oil to collect it. But this effort is not adequate enough to remove all oil slicks from the surface of the water. Once this oil dissolves into water and spreads over a vast area it is going to threaten trees, planktons, vast population of small fishes and dolphins.

The total ecosystem may face devastating consequences. Nurul Azim Shikder, Associate Professor of Chattogram University’s Marine Science Department told the media on December 27 that the damage from the spill would be multifaceted.

He also said: “The aquatic life, marine birds, and overall riverine and marine ecosystem would be the first to suffer. The thick layer of oil would block sunlight from reaching into water, which will stop planktons to grow – a severe blow to fish and mammal species in the Meghna. The spill will finally end up in the ocean and harm its biodiversity.”

The tanker sank on Sunday but still there has been no visible effort to remove oil slick from the surface of the water. However, the media officer of the Coast Guard KM Shafirul Kinjal assured that efforts had been underway to extract oil slick from the water surface since Sunday afternoon. Until and unless the full-fledged operation to do away with the layer of oil from water is on we cannot be assured of an unharmed nature around the oil spill site.

We firmly believe that this time around the same delay that we saw in the cases of the Sundarbans and Karnafhuli oil spills is not going to happen. Joint Director (rescue) of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority Abdus Salam said they would start their salvage operation from Tuesday morning as they didn’t have rescue vessel previously to lift the sunken tanker.

According to the environment experts, any kind of diesel, octane and fuel spill into the water damages the food chain of rivers and canals soon after the water is polluted and contaminated. Again such oil spill depletes oxygen in the water resulting in breathing problem for dolphin and other aquatic animals. microbes and fish living at the top level might also be wiped out.

We want both salvage operation and works on removal of oil slick to begin as soon as possible to protect our biodiversity, aquatic life, hilsa sanctuary and ecosystem. The departments concerned of the government should get into action immediately without any delay. They shouldn’t wait for the oil slick to get washed away as the water flows into the ocean.