Lebanese Oil Spill updates
(From: Stuart Schoenfeld)
French environmentalists arrive to assist in oil-spill damage control, clean-up
By Nour Samaha
Daily Star staff
Thursday, October 05, 2006
BEIRUT: French environmental experts arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday to assist
in efforts to clean up the country's largest oil spill in history and monitor
the disaster's repercussions.
The spill, caused by Israeli air strikes on the Jiyyeh power plant's fuel tanks
in July, now plagues two-thirds of Leb-anon's coastline.
"We are introducing a new technique that will deal specifically with the
clearing of oil from pebbled beaches and rock pools," said Bernard Fichaut, a
geography professor at Britannia-Breste University in France.
"This technique, otherwise known as 'surf-washing,' has been around for 30 years
and has proven to be the best method available to clear the oil quickly, cleanly
and at a low cost," he said.
The technique consists of collecting all the oil-covered rocks and stones from
the coastline and blasting them with hot water in order to remove the oil. The
process is repeated all along the beach until all the oil is caught in nets and
can be cleared.
Denis La Croix, from the French National Institute of the Sea, arrived with
Fichaut on Wednesday and will also analyze and monitor the effects of the oil
spill on local marine life.
"While at the moment we have focused on a short-term program to monitor the
effects of the oil spill on sea life, the long-term consequences are just as
important," La Croix said.
"Creatures such as plankton, mollusks and going all the way up the food chain to
fish and even birds are being directly affected; obviously this has the
potential to create an ecological disaster," he said.
La Croix said there would be additional French missions to Lebanon in the near
future to address various concerns resulting from the spill.
La Croix and Fichaut are both working in Lebanon in collaboration with Bahr
Loubnan, a local environmental organization that has already cleared 24,000
liters of oil from the Bondi-Bellevue beach and another 2,000 liters from Sands
Rock beach, both in Jiyyeh.
Mohammad Sarji, a member of Bahr Loubnan, said the organization was focusing on
removing oil from the surface of the sea.
However, while clean-up efforts have been relatively successful on the beaches
of Jiyyeh and Jbeil, an oil leak at Ramlet-el-Baida has forced work there to be
suspended since mid-September, leaving many asking how long the oil can remain
on the beach before causing irreparable damage.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=75929