Chennai: Announcing the oil spill at the Chennai Coast to be Tier – 1, Kamarajar Port Limited (KPL), on Thursday has identified 500 square metres of land to treat the recovered sludge from the sea. “The land here was identified as per the advice of Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and department of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). Chennai Port Trust has arranged 100 drums with a capacity of 500 litres each at the land. 25 of them have been delivered at Ernavur. IOC has also supplied special chemicals for the treatment,” stated a press release, adding that IOC would inform the methodology of sludge disposal.
“As advised by ministry, based on the report from Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD) team, the tier-I oil spill response equipment was deployed. There is a vast difference between the quantity of oil spilt and sludge recovered as oil gets coagulated and gets puffy when recovered with water and sand,” said port officials. Chennai Port and the state government have organised medical camps at Ernavoor and Kasimedu fisheries harbour.
Accounting the total quantity of sludge collected from the cost to be 65 kilolitres so far, the release stated, “Super suckers have recovered 54 kilo litres which contains 70 per cent water. Around 80 per cent of the work has been completed.” In the review meeting conducted by the Port Trust, participated by the representatives of all oil companies and Coast Guard, seven new hot spots were identified, between the fisheries harbour and Ernavur.
Around 500 personnel from the port and other government departments who were deployed for shoreline cleaning at Ernavur cleared about 21.1 kilo litres of sludge here, the release added. Meanwhile, Deputy director, Fire and rescue services, Meenakshi Vijayakumar and Tiruvallur Collector, E Sundaravalli inspected the site on Wednesday. Meenakshi Vijayakumar, who was present at Ernavoor beach told this newspaper, “Hundred personnel from the department were deployed to clear the sediment of the sea. Workers have been clearing it manually.”
