Govt seeks report from Navy & Coast Guard on oil spill
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 31 August 2010 23:37 IST
Goa government has asked for a detailed report from the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard about the ships travelled in Goan waters in last 72 hours.
This move from the state environment ministry comes in the wake of huge amount of tar balls hitting the Goan coastline.
"We need to find out the cause behind this menace. That is the reason we have asked for detailed information about the ships", state environment minister Alexio Sequeira told goanews.com.
As tar balls hit Goan coast usually during this time of the year, the ministry has asked Union Environment Ministry to probe into the reasons behind this phenomenon.
Currently, state government has taken up the immediate task of cleaning up the most affected beaches in the South Goa.
Tourism department deployed some of their workers at Colva beach in the morning. But they were seen disposing the tar balls on the beach itself, which is not the scientific way to dispose off the tar balls.
"Goans should not get panic seeing this material. It is not hazardous. But government should dispose it off properly." senior scientist of the NIO Dr Arvind Saran told goanews.com.
Goa government held an immediate meeting with all the concerned departments on Tuesday evening and reviewed the situation.
Unfortunately, the menace is increasing with every incoming wave. The tar balls were arriving on all major Goan coasts till late evening.
Government also roped in fire brigade personnel to clean the Colva beach. The amount of tar balls getting saturated on the beach has really left all the authorities worried.
The tourist season of Goa would be kicked off in next two weeks. But looking at the situation, there lies a huge task in front of the authorities.
This has been happening now for a couple of
of years. Once it has passed we are back to our comfortable chairs. If these are really tar balls then the source must be oil. The oil is most probably due to passing ships in the sea lane going from the Arab Gulf to east and the far east with oil cargoes or vice versa. If this is so then we have to also involve the Ministry of Shipping and Transport. Of course Defense and Coast Guard must also have responsibility. We have to put in place regulations like the rest of the countries such as in the Mediterranean and Gulf regarding pollution avoiding measures