It’s unfortunate that another large-scale oil spill happened in Philippine waters recently. An oil tanker, MT Princess Empress, encountered big waves and strong winds and capsized last February 28,2023, somewhere in the rough seas off Pola town in Oriental Mindoro. It was carrying 800,000 liters of industrial fuel from Bataan destined for Iloilo.
According to the Philippine Coast Guard, the oil slick has already reached the island of Palawan endangering the health and affecting the livelihood of thousands of coastal residents and fishermen. As of last Saturday, Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian announced that Oriental Mindoro residents affected by the oil spill have risen to 19,000. Aside from health and livelihood concerns, the damage to the environment is huge.
The recent oil spill is the second biggest in the Philippines after the oil tanker M/T Solar-1 which sank on August 11, 2006. The ship sank off the coast of Guimaras spilling more than 2.1 million liters of bunker fuel. According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the crisis affected 1,500 hectares of the local ecosystem comprised of mangroves, seagrass, and coral reefs.
According to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration of the United States, oil spills generally harm ocean life in two ways. First is fouling or oiling. It occurs when oil physically harms a plant or animal. Oil can coat a bird’s wings and leave it unable to fly or strip away the insulating properties of a sea otter’s fur, putting it at risk of hypothermia.
Juvenile sea turtles can become trapped in oil and mistake it for food. Dolphins and sea whales can inhale oil, which can affect lungs, immune system and reproduction. Many birds and animals also ingest oil when they try to clean themselves, which can poison them. When exposed to oil, adult fish may experience reduced growth, enlarged livers, changes in heart and respiration rates, fin erosion, and reproduction impairment.
The other is oil toxicity. Oil consists of many different toxic compounds which can cause severe health problems like heart damage, stunted growth, immune system effects, and even death. The understanding of oil toxicity has expanded by studying the effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in history caused by an explosion of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Around 635 million liters of oil flowed from the damaged well for 87 days.
The clean-up of an oil spill takes many months or even years. The recovery of the environment takes even longer. The Guimaras oil spill clean up lasted for a year and it took more than ten years for the environment to recover.
Large oil spills don’t happen often. However, small oil spills happen everyday from houses to commercial centers. Used cooking oil is flushed down on kitchen sinks almost on a daily basis. Backyard motor repair shops dispose gasoline and used oil in drainage canals. This dirty oil eventually reaches rivers and seas causing pollution.
Let’s be responsible. Dispose used oil properly.