KARACHI, Dec 23: While the rescue and restoration work in Korangi, which experienced an oil spill last week, ended a few days back without following the internationally established environmental practices, the area’s environment and its residents are still suffering from the aftermath of the ecological disaster.

Meanwhile, the provincial environmental watchdog is planning to discuss the issue in a meeting on Wednesday.

When Dawn visited the affected area, where an underground oil pipeline of Parco had been punctured last week by workers of the Sui Southern Gas Company, on Tuesday afternoon, the pungent smell of oil still filled the air, leading to immediate itching in the nose and the eyes watering up. The ground was covered with soil soaked with oil.

The residents told Dawn that soon after the oil came out from the underground pipeline, gushing through a 50-100-foot-high fountain, and fell like rain on the entire area, it submerged the ground and road and covered everything, including buildings, trees, electricity poles, etc.

They said that soon pipes were brought in and the oil on the road, streets and ground was pumped to the nearby drains, which eventually empty into the Arabian Sea.

A few hours later the rescue teams brought a large number of trucks full of soil that they spread on the road, ground, streets, etc so that oil could be absorbed. However, it turned out that there was more oil than the soil could soak up. Hence the oil-soaked soil was removed and another load of soil was brought in and spread on the ground. This, too, was soon soaked. So the soil was removed for a second time and replaced with fresh soil.

The residents told Dawn on Tuesday that the present layer of soil, which also presented an oil-soaked look, was the third layer, while two earlier soil layers had been removed and taken away by the rescue teams.

According to the residents, a few of the buildings – houses mostly on the main road and a few in the back streets that were visible from the road – had been cleaned and whitewashed to show that the rescue work had been done. But the majority of the houses, poles, trees, etc mostly in the lanes, and the ground still wore a blackened, oil-soaked look.

An official of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) told Dawn that a meeting of the stakeholders, including the polluting oil company, had been called on Wednesday (today) to discuss how to go about the relief and rehabilitation plan. He said that the polluting company would be told how and where to dispose of the contaminated soil at a specified location in an environmentally-friendly way so that it did not contaminate the subsoil aquifer, etc.

He said that the oil could not be put in drains as it would eventually enter the sea and affect the fragile marine ecosystem, harming marine life.

Sepa Director Naeem Mughal, who had visited the accident site, said that it showed lack of coordination among various people working there, which sometimes resulted in duplication of work. He said that the oil should not have been put in the drains as it would go to the sea affecting marine life. It should have been collected in tankers, etc and taken away for safe and environmentally-friendly disposal.

Remedies

Responding to Dawn’s queries, former Sepa director F.H. Mughal said there were many ways to treat soil contaminated with oil. These included the bio-remediation technique where nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorus, etc – are added to the soil to enhance growth of bacteria, already present in the environment, which naturally degrades certain toxic hydrocarbons in oil.

Another way is ‘soil washing’, when a wash solution – usually containing hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, etc – is added to the soil to remove contaminants, which is transferred from the soil to the wash solution, which then is treated before being disposed of.

Landfill is another choice, but the site must be selected carefully so that it does not contaminate the neighbouring land or the subsoil aquifer. Other processes like incineration, thermal desorption, chemical process and composting, could also be applied depending on the situation.

He said that typically oil contained metals like nickel, vanadium, iron, copper, chromium, paraffins, isoparaffins, aromatics, naphthenes, vacuum gas oil, hydrogen sulphide and sulphur, the majority of which are toxic. He said that poly-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were carcinogenic as well as toxic, having a long-term affect on the soil, ground, water, sediments and can act as endocrine disruptors (interfere with hormone production and function) and can affect the liver, lungs, kidneys and nervous system, leading to cancer, immunological and reproductive deformities.

Mr Mughal said that exposure to oil results in respiratory problems, skin irritations, nausea, vomiting, headache, dizziness, redness of the eyes, sore throat and breathing problems.

A large number of residents, including the elderly, youth, and children, complained to Dawn regarding these ailments on Tuesday. These effects remain in the environment for a long time and could emerge later, so they need to be carefully monitored, he added.

Toxic food

He said that in Korangi, some water channels and drains were used for irrigation to grow vegetables so the already contaminated vegetables from Korangi would get further contamination from oil components, becoming more deadly. He said that oil under the gravitational pull contaminates the ground water sources, including underground water tanks. Besides, the bearing capacity of soil contaminated with oil, which determines the load of the building that soil can take, is reduced drastically.

Pointing out that this was a case similar to that of the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal (India) but on a much more limited scale, the expert said that both the companies responsible for the pollution – the oil company and the gas company – keeping in mind the notion of corporate social responsibility, should monitor the health aspects of the people by providing long-term free medical facilities as well as providing them gas masks.

A couple of doctors practising in the vicinity also said that the number of patients, particularly the elderly, children and women suffering from respiratory tract ailments, eye infections, skin itching, etc had multiplied, and feared that the oil contamination could have long-term adverse health effects on the residents.

The residents talking to Dawn expressed dissatisfaction over the distribution of cash relief and said that only a few people had been provided with very meagre amounts while a large number of the affected people had not been given anything. Besides, they claimed that the verification process was also very lengthy and time-consuming. They also alleged that some people who were not that badly affected were compensated quickly as they were well connected.

It needs to be checked where the contaminated soil had been dumped, what effect the oil put in the drains would have on the marine environment, and how much oil had actually been spilled, and how far the adverse effects of the oil had been spread by the wind, etc, said another environmental expert.