Oil Spills

Any major shipping accident has an imperative effect, because oil or other hazardous material is discharged into the ocean waters. As the demand for oil is increasing steadily, ship movement is increasing across the globe and the increased sea traffic is leading to more accidents. Particularly, the damage is more if the oil spill occurs near the coast; it spells disaster for thousands of creatures in the sea and on land.

Wildlife gets affected by the oil spill through physical contact, ingestion, inhalation and absorption. The fish living in the affected area eat and absorb the oil, birds, mammals, sea creatures and finally humans eat these fish and the damage continues. Oil affects the immune system, damage organs and the adrenal system. Oil coats the feathers of birds and the fur of mammals and this is the beginning of serious damage. It destroys the insulating properties of feathers and fur.

The birds and mammals no longer feel warm and in many cases die of hypothermia. It also has an impact on breeding and the next generation will have curved spines, lowered growth, liver damage, eye tumours and damaged brains. Finally, the food chain gets disrupted. Birds like the harlequin duck, the sea gull, the pelican, and the cormorant are yet to recover. Whales and sea otters are a bit better off.

On account of oil spill, fishing communities lose their livelihood. They are not allowed to go into the sea for fishing. It may also damage the rich forest belt across the coast line, affecting the tribal people living in those forests. To prevent all the disasters, a strong oil spill response system is of paramount importance. Capacity building and infrastructure in the sea ports to fight oil spills have not kept pace with the need. It is time to act and prevent the further damage.Polluters should pay for the disasters.

Like Gulf War, there were so many largest oil spills in the world history. One of the biggest oil spills was recent in the Gulf War of Mexico on April 20, 2010, and the amount of oil spilled was between 205 million gallons.

This was one of the worst oil spills in US history which was more damaging than the Exxon Valdez tanker oil spill. So many birds, ocean animals and fish died as they swallow a large amount of oil and oil soaked birds and fish died. The main effects of oil spills are hypothermia and drowning of birds. It can cause damage to the airways of animals and birds. It can change the composition of water and is known as mousse. Ocean oil spills leads to tainting of algae, which is very essential for maintaining the waterway ecosystems.

After the oil spills comes the process of cleaning up of oil spills, and this recovery process is very difficult and depends on many factors, like the type of oil spilled, water temperature, types of beaches and shorelines involved. The different methods are bioremediation which uses the microorganisms for breaking down the oil.

Bioremediation accelerator acts as a herding agent and forms agglomerations with the water molecules and then the undetectable hydrocarbons can be obtained from water columns. The specific bacteria break down the hydrocarbons into water and carbon dioxide. Controlled burning is also an effective method of cleaning up oil spills, but can be done in low wind and can cause air pollution. Dispersants can be used as detergents to carry away the oil globules from water. The other cleaning up oil spills methods are skimming, dredging, solidifying and with the help of vacuum and centrifuge. So, ocean oil spills are like environmental disasters that are really tough on the water creatures and vegetations that we love and need. So, oil spills should be prevented as much as possible.