Oil Spill on the East Coast, Koh Samet

[Torurot]

Oil fouls Thai tourist hotspot
BIG JOB: Thai soldiers in white biohazard suits take part in the clean-up operation at Ao Prao Beach on Koh Samet, Rayong.


Last updated 14:29 30/07/2013 THANYARAT DOKSONE

Streaks of crude oil are marring the beach on a popular tourist island in Thailand's eastern sea despite attempts to clean up a spill from a leaking pipeline, officials say.

Tourists were warned to stay away as black waves left inky globs on Samet Island's once-serene white beaches on Monday (local time) while hundreds of workers in white jumpsuits laboured to scrape the sand clean and remove oil from the water.

Oily streaks about 300 metres wide marred the shore of Prao Bay on the island that is one of the most popular beach destinations for Thai and foreign tourists in the Gulf of Thailand, Rayong Deputy Governor Supeepat Chongpanish said.

He said authorities closed the bay as 300 workers attempted to remove the oil from the white beach and the water.

"The top priorities right now are to get rid of the oil on the sand and the seawater, and to make sure the spill doesn't spread to other shores," Supeepat said. "This is a very beautiful, white, sandy beach, so we want to make the spill go away as soon as possible."

About 50 tons of oil spilled into the sea off Rayong province on Saturday morning from a leak in the pipeline operated by PTT Global Chemical Plc, a subsidiary of state-owned oil and gas company PTT Plc.

It is the fourth major oil spill in the country's history, Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal said.

Provincial authorities declared the nearby area a disaster zone, and those affected will receive immediate assistance.

"The black waves started rolling in since last night and by the morning the beach was all tainted with oil," said Kevin Wikul, the assistant front desk officer at a resort in Prao Bay. He added that some guests requested early check-outs on Monday.

The company said it detected a leak when crude oil from a tanker moored offshore was being transferred to the pipeline, 20 kilometers (11 miles) from a refinery in Map Ta Phut, one of the largest industrial estates in Southeast Asia.

The company said in a statement that it has flown in oil spill management experts and a plane from Singapore to remove the crude oil. Thai navy vessels also joined the cleanup efforts.

Authorities said it would take some time to assess the environmental damage.

"The spill is definitely having an impact on the environment, but we have not detected any deaths of marine animals yet at this point," provincial Gov. Wichit Chatphaisit said. "PTT will have to take responsibility for the damage this has caused."

He said pollution control department officials had expressed concern about the effects of the chemical used to clean up the spill.

PTTGC apologised and said the cleanup will likely be completed within three days.

"We acknowledge this incident has damaged our reputation and we will not let it happen again," chief executive Anon Sirisaengtaksin told a news conference.

In 2009, another PTT subsidiary was involved in the Montara oil spill, one of Australia's worst oil disasters, in the Timor Sea off western Australia.

[rxpharm]

Thanks for posting Torurot - yesterday early reports were the spill was "under control" and now it is obvious it is not.

Things don't look good for recovery as some experts express their opinions, but as we've seen from the Louisiana oil spill, nature can be pretty resistant. Let's hope that is the case with this spill as well.

An article from The Nation

Academics have predicted a grim scenario for ecological systems hit by the oil spill in the Gulf of Thailand, including those around Koh Samet's Ao Phrao beach.

"It's going to be difficult to rehabilitate the affected areas," Phaithoon Mokkongpai of Burapha University said yesterday.

About 50 tonnes of crude oil leaked from an offshore pipeline on Saturday, spilling into the sea off Rayong.

In a bid to break up the oil slick, some chemicals have been used.

Phaithoon said he believed the use of chemicals was not appropriate because the oil-affected areas were not in the deep-sea zone, and these waters did not flow easily to the open sea.

There was a risk that oil droplets formed through the use of the chemicals would sink onto coral and kill them, he said, adding that ecological systems would then suffer because young aquatic animals and plankton usually live around the corals.

Phaithoon predicted disruption |to the food chain and believed |the impact would become evident soon.

"Although micro-organisms naturally consume oil, they won't be able to handle [such a] huge amount of oil," he explained.

He said that apart from damage to ecological systems, the oil spill would hurt tourism, the economy and coastal fisheries too.

"This is a big incident," he said, adding that the spill would not have posed such a serious threat if it had happened out at sea.

"But when [oil] reaches the coastal zone, the impacts are serious."

Pichai Sonchaeng, a former dean of Burapha University's Marine Technology Faculty, said the oil spill's impact on natural resources was worrying to everyone.

He urged all parties to quickly determine the exact leakage point, the exact amount of leaked oil and the affected areas, and to develop a model to assess the impacts.

"Then we will have to plan how to rehabilitate the environment and come up with the quickest and best way to do it," he said.

[TEXASMAC]

Oil spills are like Ladyboys. You can never keep them under control for long.

[PigDogg]

Today's report is that 90% of the spill on Phrao Beach is cleaned up.  But they are worried about the next tide change.  Very nice island to chill but not a P4P spot; I used to go quite a bit.

[TEXASMAC]

Progress! It's a wonderful thing?

[TEXASMAC]

At what price does humanity pay?

[rxpharm]

Good question TM - I guess as long as people still want cheap energy this sort of thing will continue to happen. In countries like Thailand with poor oversight and regulation it is surprising more of these don't happen.

Here are a couple of more articles about the spill. One about oil spill cleanup

Cleanup on Samet gets poor rating from judge



PONGPHON SARNSAMAK
THE SUNDAY NATION
RAYONG August 4, 2013 1:00 am




Four days after the PTT Global Chemical oil spill reached Ao Phrao on Koh Samet last week, a 33-year-old judge from Surin suddenly decided to drive his car for seven hours straight overnight to the affected island to voluntarily take part in efforts to clean up the polluted beach and seawater.

"This is not a time to point a finger, but a time to help each other and find a way to handle this disastrous situation," Bodisorn "Dag" Tangpariyanon said.

Before his arrival last Wednesday morning, Dag had been monitoring news reports for three days via various channels, including social media, for updates on the beach-cleaning mission while no one knew how the accident happened. Seeing a lot of rumours spreading via social media, Dag asked his boss for three days leave and travelled to Koh Samet. He said he was inspired to do this by a documentary about an oil spill recovery effort in another country and he wanted to join the mission.

First thing he did when he got on Samet was to ride a rented motorcycle around the island to witness what was really happening with his own eyes.

"I found that most of beaches and seawater surrounding the island are not like the media reports. The beaches and seawater are clean and not tainted with slick. Visitors were still enjoy swimming in the sea and not panicking over the oil problem," he said.

Some street vendors told him that the atmosphere on the island was not so chaotic.

Ao Phrao was his last stop on a two-hour motorbike trip around the island and he was very surprised the moment he arrived at the scene of the crisis.

"When I arrived at Ao Phrao I could smell the oil. It was unbelievable," he said.

He immediately parked his motorcycle and rushed to the beach to join the thousands of workers cleaning the beach.

"They asked me which group I came with and I told them that I had no group. I had just come here by myself," he said.

The workers just gave him a white bio-protection suit, a pair of plastic boots and gloves, without teaching him how to use the suit and prevent him from being affected by the crude oil.

"The only thing that they gave me was a manual in English. I've just wondered how other volunteers or workers who cannot read English would understand the manual," he said.

Dag spent several hours with other volunteers and thousands of soldiers cleaning up the beach. They used buckets and shovels to remove the thick black oil.

"You can't stay there on the tainted beach for more than two hours - we could not breathe and be patient with the strong smell of the crude oil," he said.

"No one told us how long we could stay on the beach."

While working as a volunteer on the beach, he saw some PTTGC staff wasting their time walking around on the street behind and sitting inside the small pavilion in a nearby resort.

"Soldiers had to work hard but PTTGC's staff were just walking around," he said.

Moreover, he did not believe the clean-up was well organised, as there was no key commander to tell volunteers what to do and what kind of work volunteers needed to do.

At the end of the day, after finishing his volunteer work to clean the beach, he took his motorcycle and rode to another beach to take a break before coming back to meet up with other workers again

"There was still a fresh breeze at the other beach, and it was like the white sand on Sai Kaew beach. And they still have nice fruit here on this island," he said.

Another about effects on the food chain.

Oil Spill

Toxic matter 'may enter food chain in 3 months'


Pongphon Sarnsamak
The Nation August 3, 2013 1:00 am



Officials deliver the waste collected at Koh Samet

Consumers advised to cook seafood thoroughly at a high temperature

The state health agency has said it will study the impact of the oil spill on marine life around Koh Samet's Ao Phrao in Rayong province, saying toxic substances from the crude oil may enter the food chain in the next three months.

The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry has also set up a committee to monitor the environmental impacts of the spill.

"Chaired by the ministry's permanent secretary Chote Trachu, the committee comprises representatives from other relevant agencies such as the Pollution Control Department and the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning. Also on the panel are academics from many universities," Marine and Coastal Resources Department director-general Noppon Srisuk said yesterday.

His department has been given the job of assessing the leak's impact on coral reefs and sea grass around Koh Samet. The assignment also covers efforts to determine why marine life was found beached and dead in the area.

PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC), the company behind the spill, will kick off another cleaning session on Monday and is calling for volunteers.

Meanwhile, Disease Control Department director-general Dr Pornthep Siriwanarangsun will collect random samples of seafood around the affected areas to see if it is safe for consumption.

"It is too early to say the marine aquatic animals living around the affected areas have been tainted with hazardous substances such as lead, cadmium or nickel.

"It will take at least three months for marine life, such as plankton - the main food for many aquatic animals - to be contaminated," he said.

He also suggested that people cook seafood longer and at high temperatures to reduce any toxicity. Hazardous substances from the crude oil can have short-term health impacts such as dizziness and depression as well as longer-term problems such as effects on both red and white blood cells, Pornthep said.

Since the Ao Phrao beach clean-up began on Monday, the department reported that up to 70 workers had developed symptoms such as nausea and dizziness and had to be taken to hospital in Map Ta Phut. Officials have advised people participating in the clean-up not to spend more than eight hours at the affected site.

Close eye on health impacts

To monitor the impact the spilled oil is having on the cleaning team, officials have collected urine samples from some 1,275 people at the site.

The results should be released next week.

After five days since the crude oil washed up on the shores of Ao Phrao, sand that was completely black is now looking cleaner and is expected to return to its normal condition in the near future.



Meanwhile, more than 200 big bags containing oil-tainted sand were taken to the Siam City Cement factory for disposal.

Separately, Sumet Saithong, chief of the Khao Laem Ya-Koh Samet Marine National Park, said his team had surveyed up to 70 per cent of the coral reef in the area as of Thursday. The survey will be analysed by experts to see exactly what happened under the sea in the affected site and nearby areas.

PTTGC president Bowon Vongsinudom said Ao Phrao beach should be cleaned up by next week.

He added that all waste should be shipped out of the island by today under the watchful eye of the Pollution Control Department.

He also said the thin film of oil on the surface should naturally dissolve over time.

Government agencies will inspect the area once the cleanup is complete. Bowon said the company was in the process of drafting a rehabilitation plan, which requires the Rayong provincial authorities' approval.

Both articles from The Nation

[azza33]

Lovely peaceful place is Koh Samet. Really enjoyed a few days i spent down there away from the farang masses.

Lets hope damage is minimal.

[Torurot]

Pity Foxee is no longer posting, we might get some accurate information about all this instead of oil Co. spin

[rxpharm]

Hopefully he'll post an update if he sees this.

Here's another update

Big clean-up on Koh Samet while local fishermen get compensation

 

The Sunday Nation August 11, 2013 1:00 am




Hundreds of local residents, volunteers and officials take part in a cleanup day.

Rayong province hosted a "Big Cleaning Day" yesterday at Ao Phrao - the beach on Koh Samet hit by the recent oil leak, while Deputy Premier Plodprasop Suraswadi and PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) bosses presented some 400 small-scale fishermen affected by the spill with Bt30,000 compensation per head.

Plodprasop urged the firm to take special care of Samet, possibly by setting up a fund to promote its environment and tourism on the island, while also preventing any reoccurrence of the spill.

Minister for Natural Resources and the Environment Vichet Kasemthongsri presided over a rite at 8am to seek a blessing and apologise to supernatural beings at the island's Laungpu Dam and Chaomae Tabtim shrines.

He then launched and took part in the "Big Cleaning Day" activity at 11am to ensure for the last time that the beach is free from oil before it re-opens for visitors.

Many volunteers from the local area, various agencies and organisations, and students were involved in this.

Meanwhile, some 300 owners of souvenir shops at Nuantip Pier in Phe, on the mainland, lamented at the lack of tourists caused by the disaster. They urged Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to visit the pier market and Samet to hear their woes and help bring tourists back.

Later, at 10.30am, 14 tour buses from Lak Si in Bangkok, stopped at the pier market to buy seafood.

A tour member, who asked not to be named, said a Pheu Thai Party MP from Bangkok led Lak Si residents to visit resorts at Klaeng district and Koh Samet's Ao Phrao.

He suggested PTTGC should have boats to skim oil from the water and buoys surrounding the petroleum pipe area to prevent any future oil leaks.

About 50 tonnes of oil spilled into the sea off Rayong province on Saturday July 27 from a leak in the pipeline operated by PTTGC. The oil slick reached Ao Phrao the next day.

Samet, which is about 150km southeast of Bangkok, is a popular weekend getaway for Thais and foreigners living in the capital.

Rayong provincial centre said that as of Friday some 1,127 people had registered with the authority as being affected by the oil spill. This includes 410 fishermen, 606 hotel and restaurant operators, a health business operator and 110 business people. The registration of 'victims' will continue till August 31.

30,000 Baht - a pittance for the compensation they should be paying the fishermen.