KARACHI: “This village is part of Sindh not Balochistan. But it seems that the Sindh government doesn’t own it. Relevant officials have not announced any compensation for the losses fishermen have suffered because of this tragedy.”

These sentiments were shared by a number of fishermen Dawn spoke with on Monday during a visit to Mubarak village, a coastal neighbourhood whose shoreline was badly affected by a recent oil spill and is currently undergoing a clean-up operation.

Located some 46 kilometres from Saddar, the coastal locality is very much part of Karachi’s District West and Keamari Town.

“There has been no visit by fisheries department officials, the district council chairman, area MPA or even Fishermen Cooperative Society officials, which receives five per cent commission from fishermen on each catch,” said Khuda Bakhsh, an old resident of the village.

Demand that they be compensated for their losses and people behind the oil spill be punished

He also criticised the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) which, he said, should have deputed its staff at the site.

“While Balochistan Environmental Protection Agency officials have visited the beach thrice, apart from the Hub assistant commissioner, since the spill occurred, we haven’t seen Sepa staff here,” he said.

Fishermen, though appreciative of the clean-up operation, demanded that an independent investigation be held into the incident and responsibility be fixed for the oil spill.

“We demand that people behind the incident be arrested and fishermen be compensated for their losses,” said Sarfaraz, the area councillor.

According to him, most villagers are dependent on fishing and can no longer earn their livelihood because their fishing nets had been ruined by the oily sludge and that fish rates had fallen following the incident.

‘Messy’ clean-up

Towards the shoreline, one could see two groups engaged in cleaning the beach; the rocky side was being taken care of by Pakistan Navy personnel, all in safety gear, while on the opposite side a number of villagers were seen collecting deposits of oil sludge without properly protecting themselves from the sticky substance.

Their clothes and bodies were covered with black oily stains. Apparently, there was no coordination between the two groups.

Upon inquiry, they said that they had been engaged by Byco Petroleum Pakistan Limited (BPPL) to clean the beach.

“They have registered our names and each of us would be paid Rs2,000 for the job,” Sabir, a young villager, told Dawn.

Asked how they would get rid of the stains, they said that they would “use petrol and diesel to wash away oil from their bodies”.

When concerns relating to safety were raised with Rehan Sajjad, a BPPL official present at the site, he said: “Your concerns are genuine and these will be addressed tomorrow [Tuesday] when we resume our work. Actually, it’s our first day and I didn’t have any idea about the nature of the problem here.”

He conceded that villagers should have been trained and educated about handling oil sludge before getting them involved in the operation.

However, he added, the company was under no legal obligation to carry out beach cleaning and was doing so under its corporate social responsibilities.

When similar concerns were raised with Commander Rao Abid of Pakistan Navy, heading the beach clean-up operation at the site, he said that the company should have provided protective gear to the villagers and that he would play his part in that regard.

On beach cleaning exercise, he said the third phase had started on Monday and a major part of the oil slick had been removed, both manually and mechanically. The removed sludge was being taken away for disposal by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation for incineration.

“A major challenge has been to remove hard oil traces from the rocks as it’s tough to prevent removed content going back into the sea with high tide. But I think we have managed to overcome this to a great extent,” he said, adding that the operation was likely to be completed later in the day.

Answering a question about equipment assistance PN sought from some oil companies to remove oil traces, he said it was not the PN’s job to maintain an inventory for oil spills. Oil importing and exporting companies all over the world were required to maintain such equipment and train staff to meet such an emergency.

According to him, the Sonehri beach has not been affected by oil spill, Bhit Khori has been cleared while an inspection of Manjhar Goth would be carried out.

Apart from lack of coordination, one serious gap highlighted during this exercise was the fact that though companies provided their equipment for containing and removing oil sludge to the navy, they did not have trained manpower to use those machines.

The source of the oil spill reported last Thursday has not yet been determined and an inquiry into the incident is pending.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2018