BADIN: Crude oil spilling from an imperfectly sealed oil well played havoc with over 25 fish farms eliminating fish and fish seeds and contaminating 10 kilometre of watercourse along the coast of Badin. Owners of the fish ponds say they have already suffered heavy losses.

The well is located some 20 kilometres from the Raj Malook area and around 40 kilometres from deep sea. It was drilled in 2001but stopped producing oil in 2007. Accordingly, it was capped and abandoned.

However, a leakage from the well was noticed a couple of months back and the company engaged in the oil exploration in the area was approached by the affected owners of the ponds. Finally, the firm sealed the well.

“We believe the well is still not properly sealed. We came to know about the continued leakage only on Saturday when we found huge stocks of dead fish in several ponds. We got the water tested and it emerged that crude oil has caused the devastation,” some of the fish ponds owners said on Sunday.

Ghulam Hyder Jat, Mohammed Yaqoob Jat, Mohammed Soomar and Ameer Bukhush claimed to have suffered losses running into millions of rupees.

“I had recently thrown 500,000 fish seedling in my pond and suffered Rs400,000 loss due to the destruction caused by the crude oil,” Ameer Bukhsh said.

Sabeen Jatoi, the media coordinator of the oil exploring company, when contacted for her comments, said she was not aware of a devastation but if such a situation had really emerged, it would be looked into.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2015

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