The Narendra Modi government has asked the research and development Centre of Indian Oil to take part in the containment of the oil spill that occurred near Ennore Port at Chennai recently, where two ships had collided even as the the Coast Guard had said that tremendous progress had been made and no major oil patches were seen seawards. The R&D Centre has deployed an effective and non-hazardous bio-remediation process named Oilivorous-STM following the advice of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Notably, Oilivorous-STM was developed by the Centre to deal with such onshore oil spills.
The technology involves use of identified microbes, which when administered to the oil spills with specific nutrients, eat away the oil and sludge, leaving the soil completely oil-free and harmless. In the past, this technology was successfully employed to remediate oil spills that occurred on Mumbai coast in the year 2010 due to collision between two ships.
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On advice from the Ministry, two expert scientists from Indian Oil’s R&D Centre were sent to coordinate with the local agencies ie Ennore Port Trust and Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to effectively deal with the spillage through the bio-remediation process. The requisite quantity of identified microbes and nutrients prepared at the R&D Centre have already been air-lifted and positioned at the treatment site.
A pit of size 15 metres x 200 metres x 1 foot is under preparation at an identified location at Kamarajar port. Work is underway to treat the recovered oil and sludge from the spill. It is expected that, with this treatment, the recovered oil sludge will be completely bio-remediated within a span of 6 to 10 weeks.
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More than 1,000 personnel, including those of Coast Guard and state Pollution Control Board, removed about 21 tonnes of oil with sludge and 17 tonnes of sand with slush and the sheen of oil noticed can be removed in a day or two, according to a report. The clean up work on a war-footing was carried out in several areas, including the Ennore shoreline, Marina and Elliots beaches by multiple agencies including Coast Guard along with the help of volunteers and local people.
Apart from Coast Guard, personnel from Tamil Nadu Police Coastal Security Group, pollution control board, fire and rescue department, state Highways, port trust, corporation, panchayat besides volunteers from various colleges, universities and NGOs joined the operation.
The mishap had occurred when M T BW Maple, with a flag of Isle of Man, was leaving after emptying Liquefied Petroleum Gas and M T Dawn, Kanchipuram, loaded with petroleum oil lubricant (POL), was on its way to berth at the suburban port, formerly Ennore port.