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ILOILO City: The oil recovery operations from the
sunken MT Solar 1 has been completed.
“Wala nang natira [ng oil],”
announced Carlos Tan, Petron Health, Safety and Environment manager,
over radio-television public affairs program Reklamo Publiko. As of
7:18 a.m. Monday, the oil recovery vessel Allied Shied had returned
and docked at the Bredco port in Bacolod City.
“This signaled that the
recovery operations had been completed,” Tan confirmed.
At the time it sank to a depth of
640 meters on August 11, 2006, nine miles southwest of Guimaras
Island, MT Solar 1 was carrying some 2.1 million letters of bunker
oil.
Tan said Allied Shield was able
to recover approximately 5,000 liters, “which means that some 2.09
million liters [of bunker oil] was spilled to the [Iloilo-Guimaras
Strait].”
Tan also said the clean-up
operations in Guimaras and Iloilo villages affected by the oil spill
had likewise been completed.
Still, Tan said, there is
continuous monitoring of ground water and seawater in the affected
areas.
“Tinitingnan pa rin natin kung
kailangan pa ng interventions. [If there is], babalik kami,” Tan
said.
Malu Erni, Petron Foundation
manager, assured Guimaras folks that “tuwing may request for
additional cleanup, ginagawa natin.”
In fact, Erni said, last month
they have finally wrapped up cleaning up all the debris collected at
Barangay Guiwanon and La Paz in Nueva Valencia.
“As of now, we can say that all
areas that needed cleanup have been cleaned up,” she stressed.
What happens now to the bunker
oil recovered from MT Solar 1?
Tan said Sonsub, the contractor
tapped to conduct the oil recovery operations, initially decided to
award it to a materials recovery facility in Manila for recycling.
But considering the volume of oil
recovered, Tan said there could be changes in the plan.
“Kasi 5,000 liters lang eh. How much will you spend to transport
it to Manila? Baka mas mahal pa ‘yung transport [expenses] kaysa
cost ng product,” he explained.
It is also possible for Sonsub to
bring the recovered oil to Singapore where it is based, and process
it there, Tan said.
During the oil retrieval
operations, the Philippine Coast Guard established a one-kilometer
exclusive zone around Allied Shield and set up contingency plans
including oil spill response tugboats equipped with oil dispersants,
oil skimmers for mechanical recovery of oil and spill booms for
containment.
--Panay News
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