KARACHI, Oct 20: The beach-cleaning operation undertaken after the oil spill from the Tasman Spirit has now been stopped as the authorities feel that the beach has almost been restored to its former state.

However, scientists and damage control personnel who have regularly been visiting the beach maintain that oil is still reaching it and the cleaning operation will have to be relaunched once the wreckage is removed. It is believed that about 30,000 tonnes of oil was spilt from the vessel for five weeks after it ran aground in the KPT’s channel.

The details of the official preliminary inquiry into the episode is yet to be made public while the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) procedure, suggested by a federal government committee for evaluation of the spill’s impact on the environment, remains to be kicked off.

Estimating that 40 per cent of the total amount of crude oil that was spilt into the sea might have evaporated, some experts said about 18,000 tonnes of oil either reached the coastline, contaminating the sand highly, or settled down in the seabed as residue after chemically reacting with the dispersant that was sprayed with the help of chartered aircraft.

Initial rescue and salvage efforts were concentrated on diverting the spilt oil away from the main port area. However, as the air got polluted immediately after the massive oil spill, the residents of the localities from the Shireen Jinnah Colony to Village Restaurant started complaining of strong odour which was noticeable even at a distance of one-and-a-half kilometres from the beach.

Residents of the Shireen Jinnah Colony, Seaview and Clifton as well as workers and picnickers were exposed to 40 to 170ppm of volatile organic compounds for at least 25 days. In the wake of the increasing public complaints and anticipated health hazards on Aug 13, the 14km strip of the Clifton beach was declared a prohibited area.

Some of the access roads were also sealed as various civic agencies and NGOs — including City District Government, DHA and KPT, and Edhi Trust — started cleaning the beach which continued till mid-October in one shape or the other.

During the early weeks of the cleaning operation when bioremediation was being considered as an option, floating oil debris and contaminated sand were collected manually or by machines and put in big bags which, amidst peoples’ protests and apprehensions, were shifted in phases to the City government’s landfill site in Jam Chakro near Surjani Town.

Secretary of the Environment Department in Sindh Government, Shujaat Ali Qarni, told Dawn the other day that about 3,440 bags, weighing 1,000kg each, were shifted from Clifton and Shireen Jinnah Colony areas to the landfill site where the lime treatment had rendered the oil-soaked sand clean and hazard-free.

He said the sand lying open at the landfill site, located far away from the population, was safe and could either be left there or utilized further for road construction or other filling purposes. “No more shifting of oily sand bags to the site is in process and lime treatment process has also been completed,” he added.

Mr Shujaat — who was made the focal-person for the cleaning operation by a coordination committee headed by Sindh’s chief secretary — said the work at the beach had been stopped as the identified task had been completed.

He said the manual and mechanized process adopted for the beach cleaning and washing of the affected sand through tide surfing had yielded substantially positive results. Laboratory tests of the samples of water and sand taken from different places along the beach also had shown good results as the oil content or volatile organic compounds (VOCs) had been remarkably reduced in them. The adverse effects were now negligible, he maintained.

When asked whether the beach was again a safe place for the visitors, and also when it was going to be officially opened, he refrained from making direct comments. He, however, said pre-spill condition of the beach had been restored.

Though the ban on entry to the beach area has not been lifted, people — including women and children — have started visiting the seaside and strolling there. But, they are not entering the water, he added.

About the profile of the sediment, showing the depth of oil penetration, he said oil had been seen one to 3metres below the surface at different places and as such the beach was safe so far as the sand was concerned. “They may walk and play there and even make sandcastles, to which most of the children resort to do, as on the basis of my studies and interviews with people at the beach I find the beach environmentally fit for visitors.”

In the meantime, he continued, the environment department and Sindh Environmental Protection Agency were seeking views from experts to confirm his findings about the beach and to determine the technical status of the beach.

In response to a question he said another spell of cleaning work would have to be undertaken after the removal of the wreckage, which was believed to continue discharging oil. “I have recently witnessed oil drifting in near some point along the Clifton beach,” he pointed out, adding that cleaning would be necessary after the removal of the wreckage.