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Journalism of Courage
GANDHINAGAR, SEPT 16: The Gulf of Kutch is saturated. With over 2,000 ships visiting Kandla and other intermediary ports every year, and nearly 50 per cent of India’s crude oil imports expected to be handled here by the year 2007, the fragile ecology of the region is under severe threat.
The Marine National Park (MNP), within three kms of Vadinar, is likely to suffer great damage from crude oil spills, according to senior State forest officials.
The Forest Department is in agreement with the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests which recently denied the State Government permission to run a crude pipeline through the Gulf on its way to Bina in Madhya Pradesh.
The Bharat Oman Refinery had proposed to set up crude oil import facilities near Vadinar, besides laying a pipeline through Gujarat to its refinery at Bina.
Most officials opine that the Gulf should be left alone now, as too many projects have crowded it. Spillage from ships takes place when the imported crude oil is unloaded at the portsalong the Gulf as also to the Single Buoy Mooring (SBM) set up by the Indian Oil Corporation in the sea off the Vadinar coast.
Forest officials consider the SBM a great threat’ to the MNP, as it handles 12 million tonnes of crude oil per year in a terminal within the sea itself. Minor spills, forest officials say, that took place in the terminal in the past, caused extensive damage to mangroves and marine life. The crude oil evacuated from ships to the SBM is pumped to the Mathura and Koyali refineries.
Besides this, Reliance Industries Limited is not only in the process of setting up its SBM off the Vadinar coast but has acquired 5,000 acres at Motikavri near the Sikka port to set up its refinery.
The Essar Petroleum Company and Bharat Petroleum Corporation have also proposed oil terminals near Vadinar to handle 24 million tonnes of crude oil.
According to an official estimate, around 60 million tonnes of crude oil is expected to be handled in the Gujarat coast by the year 2002 and about 82 milliontonnes by 2007.
In all, about 50 per cent of the imported crude oil is to be handled in the Gujarat coast in the coming years. “Disposal of waste and spillage that will finally go into the Gulf while handling huge quantity of crude oil at Vadinar and other points,” says a forest official, “would certainly increase the level of pollution in the MNP.”
Similarly, oil spills from the breaking of ships at the Ship Breaking Yard in Sachana have also damaged the marine life and the eco-system. “We, therefore, do not want all SBMs to be located in the Gulf of Kutch,” a senior State Government official said, adding, “All those companies that are now approaching us with the request of setting up their oil terminals near Vadinar are being asked to move to other areas.”
