Oil spill scare on Goa beaches
|
COMMENTS 
A mysterious oil spill off the coast of Goa has resulted in black balls of hardened oil washing ashore on most beaches in south Goa and some parts of north Goa
Goa’s popular beaches have turned black recently because of a suspected oil spill off the coast of Panaji. Beaches like Calangute, Siquerim and Candolim in north Goa, and Colva, Betalbhatim and Sernabhatim in the south were covered with black tar balls, state tourism officials said.
“All the south Goa beaches are covered with black oil which has been washed ashore,” a tourism official said. Tourism Department Director Swapnil Naik said they had sent teams to take stock of the situation. He said there was no cause for panic.
“There is nothing to be alarmed. Such tar balls do surface on the beaches during the monsoons,” Naik said. Goa-based National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) officials, however, said that tar balls along the coast of Goa occurred whenever there was an oil slick in the vicinity of the coastline.
“One common cause for such a slick is passing ships dumping oil overboard… After a spill, lighter components of the oil evaporate much like a small gasoline spill. In the case of heavier types of oil such as crude oil, much of the oil remains behind,” said an NIO official.
At the same time, some crude oils mix with water to form an emulsion that often looks like chocolate pudding. This emulsion is much thicker and stickier than the original oil. Winds and waves stretch and tear the oil patches into smaller pieces, or tar balls. “While some tar balls may be as large as 30 cm in diameter, most are coin-sized or a bit bigger,” the NIO website states.
The collision of two merchant ships off the Mumbai coast on August 7 caused a massive oil slick along its shores and some surrounding areas of the Konkan.
Source: Press Trust of India, August 31, 2010
IANS, August 31, 2010
http://sify.com, August 2010