Oil fouls Dalian's beaches
By Li Xinran |
July 27, 2010, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
Workers have cleaned some of the coastal waters polluted by China's largest reported oil spill, but the crude still fouling the beaches must be removed urgently, Dalian's mayor said yesterday.
Urgent cleanup of the beaches will prevent the oil from washing back into the Yellow Sea, Mayor Li Wancai was quoted as saying on the government website of the northeastern city.
"The situation is still not optimistic and we should not relax our vigilance," Li said in the statement.
The water is clean once again in a 50-square-kilometer area that was considered moderately polluted, the city statement said.
Dai Yulin, a vice mayor of Dalian, said the next phase of the cleanup was mainly back on shore, where local sand beaches were polluted.
"It is an arduous task," he told a press briefing yesterday.
"Some of the slick has been mopped up, but it's not easy to get rid of the rest," he said.
How long a full cleanup will last wasn't known. The efforts so far have included oil-skimming boats and booms to contain the slick.
But other methods were more basic: Soldiers wore rubber gloves to scoop the black gloop onto shovels and into plastic barrels, while fishermen scattered straw mats onto the water to absorb oil.
The spill began when an explosion hit an oil pipeline 0.9 meters in diameter on July 16 and triggered an adjacent smaller pipeline to explode near Dalian's Xingang Port. Both pipelines are owned by China's foremost oil and gas producer CNPC.
Thick black oil coated beaches and spread over at least 430 square kilometers off the coast of Dalian, once named China's most livable city.
A fisherman told Dragon TV in a story that aired yesterday: "The seafood we catch is totally inedible. They were all ruined while being pulled out of the sea. They smell of oil."
Zhao Zhangyuan, a research fellow with the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, told Century Weekly magazine the accident may affect local ecology "in the next 10 years."
Vice Mayor Dai said that the waters off Dalian have almost returned to normal.
"Dalian accomplished the mission issued by the state to prevent the contamination from entering high sea or Bohai Sea after more than 160 hours of efforts," Dai said.
A manager of a cleaning company working on the relief efforts, surnamed Yang, told the China Business News yesterday that he estimated the cleanup could total over 1 billion yuan (US$147.5 million).
Dalian's major holiday resort Jinshi Beach, 35 kilometers from the Xingang Port accident scene, was dotted by slicks of oil on its sand beach everywhere after the accident. Volunteers and local people did their best to clean it up.
Tourists are now endangered species on the beach, which used to attract 50,000 to 100,000 visitors daily in peak season, China Business News quoted Wang Liqi, general manager of a local beach resort, as saying.
With 80 percent of tourism groups canceling their trips to the beach, Wang estimated a total loss of 10 million yuan this year.
Dalian has reopened two of its oil berths, one capable of docking vessels up to 80,000 deadweight tons and the other capable of berthing tankers up to 150,000 deadweight tons.
The main crude-oil terminal, capable of berthing 300,000 deadweight ton vessels, remains closed.
Improper injections of strongly oxidizing desulfurizer into the oil pipeline after a 300,000-ton tanker had finished unloading its oil caused the explosion, according to results of a joint investigation launched by the State Administration of Work Safety and Ministry of Public Security.
Urgent cleanup of the beaches will prevent the oil from washing back into the Yellow Sea, Mayor Li Wancai was quoted as saying on the government website of the northeastern city.
"The situation is still not optimistic and we should not relax our vigilance," Li said in the statement.
The water is clean once again in a 50-square-kilometer area that was considered moderately polluted, the city statement said.
Dai Yulin, a vice mayor of Dalian, said the next phase of the cleanup was mainly back on shore, where local sand beaches were polluted.
"It is an arduous task," he told a press briefing yesterday.
"Some of the slick has been mopped up, but it's not easy to get rid of the rest," he said.
How long a full cleanup will last wasn't known. The efforts so far have included oil-skimming boats and booms to contain the slick.
But other methods were more basic: Soldiers wore rubber gloves to scoop the black gloop onto shovels and into plastic barrels, while fishermen scattered straw mats onto the water to absorb oil.
The spill began when an explosion hit an oil pipeline 0.9 meters in diameter on July 16 and triggered an adjacent smaller pipeline to explode near Dalian's Xingang Port. Both pipelines are owned by China's foremost oil and gas producer CNPC.
Thick black oil coated beaches and spread over at least 430 square kilometers off the coast of Dalian, once named China's most livable city.
A fisherman told Dragon TV in a story that aired yesterday: "The seafood we catch is totally inedible. They were all ruined while being pulled out of the sea. They smell of oil."
Zhao Zhangyuan, a research fellow with the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, told Century Weekly magazine the accident may affect local ecology "in the next 10 years."
Vice Mayor Dai said that the waters off Dalian have almost returned to normal.
"Dalian accomplished the mission issued by the state to prevent the contamination from entering high sea or Bohai Sea after more than 160 hours of efforts," Dai said.
A manager of a cleaning company working on the relief efforts, surnamed Yang, told the China Business News yesterday that he estimated the cleanup could total over 1 billion yuan (US$147.5 million).
Dalian's major holiday resort Jinshi Beach, 35 kilometers from the Xingang Port accident scene, was dotted by slicks of oil on its sand beach everywhere after the accident. Volunteers and local people did their best to clean it up.
Tourists are now endangered species on the beach, which used to attract 50,000 to 100,000 visitors daily in peak season, China Business News quoted Wang Liqi, general manager of a local beach resort, as saying.
With 80 percent of tourism groups canceling their trips to the beach, Wang estimated a total loss of 10 million yuan this year.
Dalian has reopened two of its oil berths, one capable of docking vessels up to 80,000 deadweight tons and the other capable of berthing tankers up to 150,000 deadweight tons.
The main crude-oil terminal, capable of berthing 300,000 deadweight ton vessels, remains closed.
Improper injections of strongly oxidizing desulfurizer into the oil pipeline after a 300,000-ton tanker had finished unloading its oil caused the explosion, according to results of a joint investigation launched by the State Administration of Work Safety and Ministry of Public Security.
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