By Mustapha Jarju
Marine business of oyster and fishing has been seriously disrupted by excessive oil spillage at Mandinary depot.
STURLA Vessel discharged heavy fuel oil (HFO) on 28 May2022 from a pipe connected to the vessel in the river at around 2am to 3am, and spilled 700 litres of heavy fuel oil into the river covering about 5 kilometres.
Dawda Badjie, executive director of the National Environment Agency, told reporters during a tour to the sites that the purpose of this visit is to see the extent of the stain around the mangroves and assess how extensive the oil has been for this to help prepare in term of the cleaning process, “basically this is why we are here, that is why all the relevant stakeholders are here.”
“It is actually challenging if you want to clear all this oil from the mangroves, this is why the security forces join us and all other stakeholders to ensure that the situation is controlled within the means that is available,” he added.
“When Oysters are covered with oil naturally, they will have problems and when you look at the livelihood there are fishermen, there are women who depend on Marine for their survival, probably after the clean-up we will assess the extent of the damage so that we can see what we can do. We also sent divers to go deep into the water with cameras to check, based on the initial assessment they did not see ant deposit of oil under the water,” he continued.
Meanwhile, Sanna Dahaba, Executive Director of National Disaster Management Agency said: “it may be possible for the who have been affected by the oil split in water to be compensated, in which they will see what amount of compensation and what type of compensation that need to be given to the victim, saying they are going to continue to assess to see what is undone.”
He added: “There are some places that we cannot reach physically but there is another alternative to use in clearing such areas and on Tuesday they will mobilize another sixty men to continue with the clearing.”
