- Was there really no environmental impact from this marine disaster?
Back in 2020, before the now-infamous disaster that was the sinking of the MV Express Pearl, there was another maritime disaster that took place off Sri Lanka’s eastern coast – the ship MT New Diamond, a very large crude oil carrier. On 3 September 2020, the ship caught fire off the western coast of Sri Lanka, resulting in the death of a Filipino crew member. After burning intermittently for almost a week, the fire was reported to be extinguished by 11 September.
The ship burned for six days straight before the fire was put out, and unfortunately also led to crude oil spillage into the ocean. Last week, the Marine Environment Protection Agency (MEPA) – which was supposed to be compiling a report assessing the environmental damage so the shipping company responsible for the MT New Diamond could be charged appropriately, came forward to state that there was no environmental impact caused by the ship.
Sri Lanka’s marine environment has experienced a lot of stress these past two years from long-standing issues like overfishing, a lack of policing in Marine-Protected Areas, and pollution (both plastic pollution and otherwise), to the environmental impact of shipping accidents like the MT New Diamond and the MV X-Press Pearl. The impact of these shipping accidents has been heavily discussed by marine environmentalists, and MEPA’s findings with regard to the MT New Diamond have caused some disagreement among the marine conservation community, which was speaking about the effects of the MT New Diamond on animals and the environment of the east coast even before the MV X-Press Pearl’s sinking (which took place off the west coast).
Brunch spoke to an environmentalist to learn more about the situation.
Significant environmental damage
The Pearl Protectors Co-ordinator Muditha Katuwawala shared that according to MEPA’s report, there were no marine deaths from the oil spill. However, he stated that when the disaster happened, the ship was carrying 300,000 metric tonnes (MT) of oil which caused the ship and the engine room to catch fire and oil from the ship to leak out: “There are several images of oil spilling out of the ship while it was being towed and bunk oil is quite bad for the environment.” He added that we also saw bunk oil spilling from the MV X-Press Pearl disaster after the ship caught fire, but the oil spillage from both ships, fortunately, did not reach our coasts.
Katuwawala stated that they began to see many oddities soon after the disaster. “We saw porpoises – which are very sensitive sea animals – several of which had died and there were burn marks on their bodies,” he stated, adding that if it was just one porpoise, it could be chalked up to coincidence, but there were multiple dead porpoises found in different locations on the east coast off Arugam Bay and Batticaloa, where the disaster took place. Katuwawala added that there were also reports of dead turtles.
In an ideal situation, these animals would have been taken and a post mortem would have been conducted, Katuwawala said, adding that MEPA claimed to have verified whether these dead animals were linked to the MT New Diamond. He further stated that more research was being conducted to check if this disaster had an environmental impact.
“The National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) visited the east coast and found turtles that were floating. They were alive but this is known as the floating syndrome, which means they were struggling to dive down,” he stated, adding that Olivia, a turtle they rescued, also had the floating syndrome. Evidently, what happens after they enter this floating stage is, inevitably, the turtles die. According to NARA, they had found multiple cases of turtles with the floating syndrome in the vicinity of the marine disaster.
Katuwawala pointed out that the MEPA Chairperson went on record saying there was no impact caused by the MT New Diamond on marine animals, corals, or the mangroves. “When you make a claim like that, you need to show the post mortem reports – which are not available yet – but she goes on to say that mangroves or corals have faced no impact,” he stated, raising the questions of who did the report, research, and surveys. He added that the right thing to do would have been to conduct the post mortem and do the research, and if there seemed to be no clear answer, they could simply have said there was not enough evidence to link it to the ship; and yet, MEPA made the claim that there was absolutely no impact on the environment.
Katuwawala also pointed out that since MEPA had made what appeared to be a non-factual and misleading comment, the shipping company could use the comment to their advantage and refuse to pay for damages, which would limit chances of recovery.
What does MEPA say?
Commenting on MEPA’s stand on the issue, MEPA Chairperson Darshani Lahandapura told Brunch that her comment had been misinterpreted: “If there’s an oil spill, of course, there is going to be environmental damage. What I said was that there was no damage to the coral reefs because this took place in the deep sea. So because it happened in the deep sea, we did not see any impact on the mangroves or corals.”
Lahandapura further stated that there was undoubted damage to the environment due to the oil spill, which was why they had gathered all the information and studies they had done and created a report. When Brunch asked her if we could see the report to assess what damages were actually caused, she informed us that the report had been handed over to the AG who presented it to an expert panel, and without whose consent she could not release the report to the public.
Lahandapura reiterated that she had never mentioned that there was no pollution, and what she had meant was that there was no impact on the environment. Contradicting statements, but as the general public, we can only assume there is a reason as to why the whole truth is not being shown.
She also stated: “This is a sensitive issue; people don’t understand the importance of keeping some of the information out of focus. When it comes to the limelight, we will have to expose certain information, else they will accuse us of not revealing information which will be detrimental to the country.”
We must question when, if ever, keeping information from the public has merit, and while the process around declaring the environmental impact around the MT New Diamond is still ongoing, we are to understand, from both Katuwawala’s observations, and Lahandapura’s insight, that there is information that is yet to have been revealed, and one can only wonder how it will impact our future.
