Why oil spillage handled manually?

Sagar Biswas :
When the entire global community has been expressing grave concern about the fate of the Sundarbans, the Bangladesh government is seemingly showing a relaxed mood in containing the oil spill in the world’s largest tidal mangrove forest.
Several hundred local people along with their country boats are now trying to clean-up the oil ignoring severe health hazards. And the government is encouraging the manual procedure by purchasing the colleting-oil from the poverty-stricken local people by offering cash.
Questions have been raised whether it is possible to clean up the whole Sundarbans by picking up the oil by hand in this way? Or, is this the only way of extracting the oil? Who will take responsibility of health hazard for using poor people’s bare hands to extract the oil?
In this backdrop, fresh allegation has been raised against the Shipping Ministry for not engaging its own apparatus to check the oil spreading in Shela River and its adjacent cannels.
Former Chittagong City Corporation Mayor and Chittagong City Awami League President ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury on Wednesday expressed astonishment as why the Shipping Ministry is not using its oil-cleaning vessel to contain oil spreading in the Sundarbans. “The Chittagong Port Authority [CPA] had received an oil waste collection vessel “Bay Cleaner-2″ on February 11, 2010 to prevent spillage of wasted oil into the sea from ships, tankers or other vessels,” Mohiuddin said. He also said that Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan himself had attended the ceremony where the vessel was given to CPA . “It is very suspicious why the Shipping Minister did not give any instruction to use the vessel in the Sundarbans cleaning operation,” he mentioned.
When contacted, Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan, told The New nation last night over phone, “I can’t explain you the reason behind the non-use of the vessel just now.”
The Shipping Minister also refrain from making any comment when he was asked why the CPA had sent its salvage vessel ‘Kandari-10’ for salvaging the sunken oil tanker after the oil tanker OT Southern-7 sank in the Sundarbans on December 9.
Allegations also have been raised that none of the government ministries, including Ministry of Environment and Forest, have taken any pragmatic step till the date to save the ‘UNESCO world Heritage’ from the devastating ecological disorder following the recent furnace oil disaster.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Shipping tried to clarify its stance for allowing the rivers and cannels inside the Sundarbans for commercial transport by playing a mysterious role after the accident.
At present, the home to the Royal Bengal tigers as well as hundreds of Irrawaddy dolphins is in extreme danger while the poisonous furnace oil already reached as far the water went during the high tide, through the Shela river to Pasur, Boleshwari rivers and the innumerable canals.
The forest officials who have visited the spot said that the oil layer now floating on the river is relatively thin, although sunlight and oxygen cannot penetrate even this thin layer and reach the water beneath. As a result, it is pushing all the aquatic lifeforms, including aquatic vegetation and fish, to their death.
Experts said it’s a matter of grave concern that no live dolphin, crocodile, fish, fishing birds or any other animals have been spotted in the area since the oil spill. They also fear that the animals have either perished or have moved elsewhere.
Besides, the breather roots covered by oil are creating obstacles for breathing of the trees, including Sundari, Keora and Bain. The crabs, mudskippers and other invertebrates are now in danger as their mud-homes are covered with oil.
According to experts, many varieties of fishes as well as shrimps lay their eggs in the rivers of Sundarbans this is also the season when the trees start growing their buds.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has agreed to help for containing the spread of oil in the Sundarbans. In this regard, a team of the UN environmental agency UNEP and humanitarian affairs coordination agency OCHA will arrive in Dhaka soon.
Earlier, Bangladesh had sought UN help through Economic Relations Division [ERD] and the UN’s special unit for environmental disaster has agreed to provide its assistance. The UNDP Dhaka office has already offered to help the forest department in its current efforts, according to media reports.
The UNDP Bangladesh said the oil tanker accident once again highlighted the need for a complete ban on the movement of all commercial vessels through the Sundarbans.
 “Global experience shows that this kind of incident has long term environmental consequences and it requires coordinated multi-sectoral efforts to restore the affected areas,” Pauline Tamesis, country director of UNDP, expressed severe concern in a statement, on December 11.