ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER ON SRI LANKAN COAST

 

               ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER ON SRI LANKAN COAST   

    

       An environmental disaster is looming large on the Sri Lankan coast as a chemical laden cargo ship, ravaged by fire, is sinking in sea waters not far from the Colombo coast in a worst ever marine mishap threatening the country. The ship was carrying 1500 containers filled with chemicals including 25 metric tons of Nitric acid. Waves of plastic wastes are washing up on the shore and navy sailors were deployed to clean the beaches of the plastic pellets as smoke is billowing out from the burning and the sinking ship. There is also a danger of oil leak into the sea from the tank of the ship containing 350 metric tons of oil threatening an oil spill.  Sri Lanka's Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) said in a statement that the micro-plastic pollution of the containers could cause years of untold ecological damage to the fragile ecosystem of the island nation.

The environmental impacts of the disaster are terrible!  The effect of oil spill on the environment and biological habitats is catastrophic as it can kill plants and animals and also disturb the various parameters of the sea waters including salinity and pH levels and altering the food chain of the marine ecosystem. When an oil slick from a large spill reaches a beach, the oil coats and clings to every surface of the beach including rocks and grains of sand. If the oil washes away into the coastal marshes and wetlands like the mangrove forests, fibrous plants and grasses absorb oil which can damage their cells and make the area unsuitable as a wildlife habitat.

              The greatest victims of the oil slick are, however,  the aquatic birds,  marine mammals and fishes . Oil coats the feathers of the aquatic birds reducing their ability to fly and get air-borne escaping from the predators.  Oil spills also kill mammals such as whales, dolphins, seals, and sea otters.  Oil can clog blow-holes of whales and dolphins making it impossible for them to breathe properly and disrupting their ability to communicate. Oil coats furs of otters and seals leaving them vulnerable to hypothermia. Oil spills often take a deadly toll on fish, shellfish, and other marine life population particularly if many fish eggs or larvae are exposed to oil. 

        Apart from the environmental impacts, the economic impacts of the oil spill are also immense. The impact has started to be felt in the lives and livelihoods of the fishing community of coastal Sri Lanka and the fishing industry of the country. The ship is sinking in a rich fishing area prompting the government to suspend the fishing activity along a 50-mile stretch of the coastline. Fishing, which is a primary source of livelihood in coastal towns of the island nation, has been hit harder as a result of the incident with the people also refusing to buy chemical coated fish.

        The severity of the oil spill to the marine ecosystem can be appreciated from the fact that he Exxon Valdez oil spill incident in Alaska on March 29, 1989    killed as many as 250,000 sea birds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbour seals and up to 22 killer whales. In the years that followed, scientists noted higher death rates among sea otters and other species affected by the spill and stunted growth or other biological damage among additional species. The spill destroyed billions of salmon and herring eggs.  Fisheries impacted by the Exxon Valdez was huge that took over three decades to recover.

        The greatest concern of the Sri Lankan disaster is , however, the fact  that while the environment impacts of the oil spill on the ecosystem has been fairly studied, the chemical pollution, resulting out of that ,  has hardly been evaluated and documented.