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Rushing To Remove Wakashio Oil Will Cause ‘Irreversible Damage’ To Mauritius Warn Oil Spill Veterans

This article is more than 3 years old.

According the US embassy in Mauritius, up to 300,000 gallons are now believed to have been spilled into Mauritius’ coral lagoon along some incredibly rare and unique coastline in the midst of a global biodiversity hotspot.

Nationwide protests on Saturday reveal how much trust has broken down between - on one hand - the Government of Mauritius and an army of international oil spill advisors, and on the other, citizens and diaspora of Mauritius who are still not seeing the transparency and accountability they expect during a major oil spill response.

The contrast between Mauritius’ approach and its Indian Ocean island neighbor, Sri Lanka, has been stark. Sri Lanka is currently addressing a major crude oil spill from the MT New Diamond. Within hours of being alerted Sri Lanka’s approach has been notable for its full international collaboration (three nations are immediately involved in the response and containment), rapid response (within hours the air force and navy of multiple nations were on the scene) and transparent information (within hours, Sri Lanka’s meteorology department were already sharing forecasts where a potential oil spill may spread, and there was full transparency on what equipment was available for containment in concentric rings around the oil tanker).

Almost diametrically opposite, Mauritius’ response over the past 41 days has been slow ahead of the Wakashio breaking up on the reefs after 12 days of drifting, information released is heavily edited and is no longer trusted by an angry population, and the Government appears to be complicating the restoration phase with a series of complex bilateral negotiations that is delaying and confusing a nation still in the midst of a national emergency.

So how should a country think about cleaning an oil spill like this?  Here are some of the world’s leaders in addressing major oil spill clean ups.

US Department of Interior: Rick Dawson (Retd).

When it comes to oil spill cleanup veterans, you don’t get more experienced than Rick Dawson. A former senior official with the US Department of the Interior, he was responsible for some of the US Government’s most important oil spill responses, damage assessments and restoration of damaged habitats over the past forty years.

He was involved in two of the world’s biggest oil spill cleanup operations – the Exxon Valdex and Deepwater Horizon – and has seen cleanup operations in all parts of US territories around the world, from coral-rich lagoons in Puerto Rico, San Francisco Bay with the Cosco Busan, the Gulf of Mexico with Deepwater Horizon, and was even present during the interviewing of the captain of the Exxon Valdez after the 1989 oil spill in Alaska.

If there’s been a big oil spill, he’s seen it, and has been involved in the damage assessment and cleanup. He was the architect behind the major agreements between the world’s maritime industry insurance (P&I Clubs) and the US Department of Interior, and is still involved with FEMA (the US Federal Emergency Management Agency) guiding on the recovery of natural disasters.

Rick Dawson has been following developments in Mauritius, and here is what he had to say about what to do next.

1. What are the most important lessons from the major oil spills that you have been involved with?

There are some very clear “Do’s” and “Don’ts” on what to do following an oil spill. 

Often actions taken to try clean up the spill could end up being even worse than the spill itself, and what started with an oil spill incident ends up becoming even more toxic as chemicals used in the cleanup change the chemistry of the oil. A poorly planned cleanup operation could cause irreversible damage to marine life along a coastline. All this is avoidable with the right planning, expertise and experience.

Most importantly, be careful with the use of chemical dispersants and high powered water sprays. In many instances, the cure can be worse than the disease itself.

There is a standard response from the oil industry following a major oil spill incident. It usually runs as follows:

a) “It is not my oil”

b) “It is not much oil”

c) “The oil won’t do much harm”

I’ve seen over 20 major oil spills in my career – from oil tankers, oil rigs and bunker fuel spills. There is a clear process that needs to be followed for each. After a while there is strong pattern recognition, and it is important a place like Mauritius has the right sort of expertise available who have acted on behalf of Governments and communities affected, and can provide the right sort of independent advice based on decades of experience.

2. What are the key phases following a major oil spill

There are usually four phases to any oil spill.

Phase 1: Oil spill containment. Let’s prevent the oil from getting to sensitive or harmful locations (usually involving oil spill booms)

Phase 2: A well-planned oil clean up response. The steps taken to remove the oil from contaminated beaches need to be done carefully. In Mauritius case, if the numbers from the UN are correct at 30 km of coastline affected, this is a large area that has been impacted.

Phase 3: Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA).  This is a formal process and there are clear procedures and standards to follow. It includes measuring the impacts from the spilled oil and the impacts from the cleanup activities. For example, a decade after the Exxon Valdez and Selendang Ayu spills in Alaska, cleanup impacts may have exceeded those caused by the oil itself. The NRDA studies can be collaborative science conducted between consultants retained by the spiller and those employed by the government.

Phase 4: Long term restoration. Based on the NRDA, a long term Restoration Plan that includes compensation of the public for its lost use of natural resources (i.e. fishing beach use, birdwatching, scuba diving, etc.). Restoration projects are usually linked to the lost resources and include careful monitoring over many years.

3. How should Governments think about cleaning up the oil from the coastline?

A threat matrix needs to be created that covers two aspects: the type of intervention, and the type of coastline. Let’s take each in turn.

There are three ways to remove oil from a coast:

  • Chemically – using chemical dispersants (usually low level industrial grade detergents that break down the oil into smaller particles that end up being absorbed by life in the ocean)
  • Biologically – using a range of biological and enzyme processes (something called bioremediation)
  • Physically – this means the physical or mechanical lifting of oil from the beach and coastline and washing off the oil in a contained environment so the oil cannot wash back into the ocean. The sand on the beaches can then be put back safely.

The worst thing you can do following an oil spill is to use chemical dispersants to breakdown and remove the oil. Here is why.

Visually, chemical dispersants give the impression of making oil disappear.  Actually, that is not what is happening. It may appear to be magic, but there is no magic to chemistry – the oil has to go somewhere. These chemicals break down the large, visual pieces of oil into small, invisible pieces. These smaller pieces of oil can now be consumed by many other species – a process called making the oil more ‘bioavailable.’ 

In oil spills around the world, there is a lot of pressure from the oil companies and tourism industry to make the visible oil spill disappear. There is a mindset of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ 

By using low grade chemical dispersants, you could end up with a cleanup operation being several orders of magnitude greater and more toxic than the original spill. Hence the phrase we often hear in the oil spill cleanup business: ‘the cure can be worse than the original disease.’

4. What are chemical dispersants and why are they so bad for a place like Mauritius?

Chemical dispersants are nothing more than low grade industrial detergents, that you may find around your kitchen sink to wash dishes with. In several oil spills, you may even have seen this dishwashing soap being used to clean drenched seabirds and other marine life. 

However, we learned in Deepwater Horizon that whilst such chemicals appear harmless to humans and large animals, they could be devastating to fragile, smaller organisms, like coral reefs and other beach life that depend on a delicate balance of a healthy ocean microbiome – the billions of microscopic organisms that give an island a healthy coral reef system.

In some cleanup operations, detergents are sprayed on sandy beaches or rocky shorelines. Chemical dispersants may be sprayed in the water to make the oil disappear from view. In both cases, an additional danger is created.

Whereas before, the oil was just on the surface of the beach, or the water, the application of chemicals by applying detergents and/or chemical dispersants, changes the chemical composition of the original oil that was spilled. The oil doesn’t magically disappear, but rather breaks down into smaller parts and either penetrates further into the beach or becomes more “biologically available” as smaller “droplets” to organisms in the water column. This alteration in physical and chemical form of the original spilled oil increases its toxicity. These new compounds result in impacting more of the marine ecosystem. So vital for the island’s biological, cultural, and economic health.

The proper technique to clean up oil spills from a beach is using a “mechanical” approach. Washing the sand with low pressure water close to shore, contained by sorbent booms and skimming the resulting oiled waters by vacuuming them into a tanker truck. Repeated “sand washing” will remove most of the oil. The microorganisms that are vital to a health beach will come back naturally over time. Similar techniques can be employed in oiled mangrove and other wetland areas. For areas containing coral the best techniques are to guard against booms, chains, and tenders/boats from striking the fragile corals during containment and cleanup operations.

However, if you mix the oil with other chemicals, like these dispersants, these ecosystems will not recover.

By adding one chemical to another (oil), you start to change the compound. By chemically changing the compound, you change the toxicity of the oil to make it more toxic.  The precise process that breaks down the oil, is what would kill other marine life. By breaking down the structure of oil molecules, this process also breaks down the cell structure of important marine bacteria. Losing this bacteria is what would lead to the collapse of life around a coastline.

In somewhere like Mauritius, the impact would be devastating. Mauritius has some very fragile coral reefs that provide life for much of the marine life around the coast. These coral reef systems were already under pressure from climate change and the oil spill. By now putting additional chemicals in the water, this is triple-stressors on these very fragile landscapes (climate change, oil spill and now a chemical spill). It would destroy the health marine bacteria that are vital to give coral its life and color. Bleaching is a phenomena that corals may be able to recover from – a toxic chemical spill would make it almost impossible.

5. Have you seen this phenomenon in previous oil spills?

Yes – all the time. In the 10-year review of the worst US oil spill disaster at the time, Exxon Valdez in Alaska, we realized how little the oil spill clean up industry really knew about the marine environment.

In their clean up operations, they had inadvertently created ecological cascade effects.

The cleanup teams had utilized high-pressure water washing that essentially “sandblasted and polished” the oil-soaked algae off the rocks in Prince William Sound, the site of the spill, to remove visible traces of the oil. These algae were the base of the rocky inter-tidal marine food chain. With the removal of the algae the foundation of the food chain was gone and an ecological collapse had begun. This collapse was known as an ”ecological cascade effect” where the algae was the base feed on by limpets which in turn provided food for Sea Otters. Also, the algae provided habitat and nutrients for herring larvae that in turn both as eggs, larvae and adults were the food for several species of commercially valuable salmon and that salmon population also collapsed.  So one small intervention, could end up having major consequences for the entire biological food chain if this is not fully understood. And this effect in Alaska is still being felt today, 30 years on.

I can see the same thing happening in Mauritius, if the country is not careful. If you are not careful around those important breeding ground among the mangrove roots and turtle nesting grounds on the beach, you will create a series of cascading ecological collapses that could wipe out most life in the coral lagoons of that part of Mauritius, as most of the dolphins appear to be dependent on the vibrant coral lagoon fish.

6. How do you determine which technique to use and where?

The coastline of Mauritius is complex. From what I can see, there are at least seven type of landscapes where the oil will need to be removed

  • Sandy beaches
  • Pebble bays (where I saw some of the dolphins washed up)
  • Mangrove root systems along the coast (such as the protected mangrove forests)
  • Small coral island atolls
  • Built up areas that use manmade structures near the towns
  • Underwater coral reef systems from around the crash site
  • Underwater seagrass habitats in the coral lagoon that appears to have trapped some of the oil

Each of these systems will respond differently to the techniques used. 

  • For four of the systems: sandy beaches, pebble bays, built up areas, coral island atolls a physical or mechanical removal approach should be taken.
  • For mangroves, careful thought is needed given the complexity of the root systems. There are many lessons from around the world on what needs to happen. I would definitely convene a gathering of world experts to discuss the best approach, and would not rush into any solutions on this for the next few weeks. There is no urgency to act here, and rushing to a bad decision would be worse than no action at all.
  • For underwater habitats such as coral reef and seagrass environments, care needs to be taken that more damage is not caused by cleanup boats scraping off the fragile and delicate coral environments.

7. Let’s go through each in turn. How should the sandy beaches be cleaned?

The top layer of the sand that is contaminated will need to be physically lifted. It should be taken to a carefully selected location and washed, taking care that the oil does not leach into the soil. There are many sand-washing machines that are now on the market.

By taking just the top layer, the microorganisms in the beach below the surface can be allowed to rejuvenate. Remember, beaches are habitats for many other species like crabs and other crustaceans, and they are vital to a healthy beach ecosystem.

Care must be taken not to leach chemicals into these systems. If low pressure water is used to clean some of these beaches, booms will be needed in the lagoons to trap the floating oil and skim it up.

With a well planned physical cleaning operation, beaches in Mauritius could be rapidly restored to a healthy state again, without killing any life within it.

8. What about the mangroves?

The mangroves are a lot more complex. Mangroves are areas of high productivity for where many fish have their nursing grounds. It is vital that they are not sterilized with chemical dispersants.

Care must be taken not to walk through these root systems. By walking through them, cleanup teams inadvertently push down the oil into the root systems of mangroves.

This is where the toxic chemicals contained in the bunker fuel oil in Mauritius’ lagoons would get absorbed by the mangroves and kill it.

There have been oil spills around mangroves before, and lessons should be taken from these. For example, in 1986, 50,000 barrels of oil were spilled into the largest complex of mangroves and coral reefs on the Caribbean coast of Panama. This was known as the Bahia Las Minhas spill, and is used as a case study on how to clean oil spills around coral reefs and mangroves.

Several important studies were put out on how to clean these mangroves. The US Department of the Interior Report, known as OCS Study MMS 90/0031 (MMS stands for Minerals Management Service)  is known as the most authoritative guide to cleaning up oil spills around mangroves, and there many well cited academic papers on this particular cleanup operation around mangroves that should be looked at for Mauritius.

With the right planning, some of these mangroves have been restored to health. But there are other examples where the opposite has occurred.

9. How about clearing the oil from the coral and seagrass?

Oil is extremely toxic on coral and you can see the effects immediately – it is an accelerated version of climate change. What is critical is to understand the impact of the oil on coral polyps. Coral reef systems are extremely delicate and depend on coral polyps to thrive. Coral polyps are the soft organisms with a limestone skeleton that forms the basis of all coral reefs.

There are some surveys that should immediately be done on the corals and three questions need to be addressed.

a) Which part of the corals were covered by oil?

The shade of the oil will be impacting the growth and health of corals, as the shade will prevent photosynthesis. The photosynthesis is what keeps the coral polyps alive, and starving them of sunlight will kill them. So the first question is really about the physical barrier that prevents sunshine from reaching the polyps.

b) What is the toxicity of the oil on the polyps?

The second question concerns the pass through of toxicity through the water to the corals. This is the chemical impact on polyp growth. This can be seen almost instantaneously and must be understood. Divers should be able to go around corals and immediately assess their reaction to the oil.

c) How safe are the boat operations around the corals?

In many places where cleanup operations have occurred around corals, well-meaning boats into the reefs end up doing more damage. These boats end up scraping the edges of these delicate reefs and cause even more long-term damage to reef systems that could be thousands of years old. These are known as boat strikes on the coral reef.

If it can be shown that 1) the oil is not a physical barrier to photosynthesis on the corals and 2) the corals are not in a rapid state of decline due to toxicity in the water column, then to prevent additional harm of boat strikes against the reef, a system of skimmers may be needed to trap any oil coming out of the reef systems each day and then skimmed off.

10. So most of your recommendation involves reviewing all chemical dispersants, and exploring physical removal of oil. What about the biological approach?

There are many names for biologically removing oil. They are essentially derivatives of enzymes that can eat the oil and disappear (bioremediants).

While many sound promising, it is important to conduct testing in limited situations. The long term effects of bioremediants are not yet fully understood, and care should be taken that Mauritius does not become a testing ground for these new products. Safe lab tests must be conducted first in a controlled setting before placing bioremediants into anything that interfaces with the open ocean.

11. In your opinion, was it advisable to have sunk the forward section of the Wakashio?

The US has had some very negative experiences of sinking vessels. For example, in 1994, a barge crashed into the reefs of Puerto Rico and started leaking oil. Attempts were made by the US Navy to seal the oil spill but they were unable to do this fully. Between 85,000 to 125,000 gallons of oil had spilled into the reef systems, less than half of the

Mauritius spill.

Upon the advice of specialists, the US Coastguard towed the barge, called the Morris J. Berman, and sunk it at a depth of 2000 meters of water. It was believed that this would contain the spill.

What we saw was that the vessel behaved like a ketchup bottle. With pressures at that depth, all the remaining oil was squeezed out and created a second oil spill. So rather than one oil spill, we now had two to clean up.

It’s incredible that 25 years after this experience, the oil cleanup and salvage teams have still not learned their lessons.


12. What will be the National and international legacy of this spill?

In the past most oil spills leave some type of legacy. They result in some type of government regulation or some international action, some agreement between the shipping industry and the government pledging future action or cooperation. So, what can Mauritius learn from past spills and the resulting actions?

The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill resulted in the passage of the US Oil Pollution Act that required double-hulled tankers in U.S. waters, it imposed a tax on imported oil into the U.S. that funded NRDA activities.

The 2007 Cosco Busan spill, in San Francisco Bay, led to the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between the P&I Clubs (shipping insurance) and the U.S. Department of the Interior modeled on an existing agreement between the Clubs and NOAA.  The MoU specified details on how to cooperate on spill response, the NRDA, restoration, and annual meetings to discuss these issues.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill has resulted in the largest cooperative restoration planning and implementation following an oil spill anywhere in history.

13. Is there any other advice that you can offer to the officials and cleanup teams in Mauritius?

What we learned in the US is that it is critical to perform a scientifically independent Natural Resource Damage Assessment in the very early days of an oil spill.

In the case of the Cosco Busan and other major oil spills, the polluting entity is made to fund the collection of this independent science. In the Cosco Busan case in San Francisco, this was $8 million of science. Given all the wrecks of historic importance in the location of the crash, a full archeological survey should be conducted to assess the state and any damage caused to these wrecks as these are incredible cultural resources. This is not just about the impact of the vessel grounding and oil spill, but any potential damage caused during the salvage operation such as the use of seismic testing that could have very adverse effects on historic wrecks.

It will be a matter of the courts and arbitration to work out who was to blame, who pays what, and how much should be paid, but this is not an excuse to delay the collection of best science now.

Many of the examples we’ve seen are from the last 40 years, and there is a vast amount of knowledge and experience that can be tapped into to ensure Mauritius receives the very best assistance, given the unique biodiversity of that region.