Oil spillage: Accident or sabotage
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: January 13, 2024 -
AS we have pointed out earlier, leakage of furnace oil from the Heavy Fuel Power Station at Leimakhong is going to do more harm than just contaminating the local waterways on which the people depend for their daily use.
It is an environmental disaster that is going to endanger public health, imperil drinking water supply, devastate natural resources, and disrupt the local economy.
Because of its physical as well chemical characteristics, exposure to heavy fuel oil is toxic to humans and wildlife, and highly polluting to the environment.
It has been well-documented how the viscous and sticky consistency of heavy oil makes it much harder than even crude oil to pump or collect during a spill, often fowling habitats for years, and the harmful chemical contents like Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, or PAH for short, are known to cause cancer in human beings.
More worryingly, Heavy Fuel Oil is said to become more toxic when exposed to Ultra-Violet (UV) light and can be absorbed by organisms, increasing their mortality.
So, it is commendable that the Government of Manipur has taken up swift actions like issuing high alert and sealing off the affected area completely along with diverting flow of the toxic heavy fuel oil from the local waterways to a nearby dug out field before reaching the main waterways/rivers so as to contain spread of contaminants into the public water supply system and collecting samples of water for daily testing to ensure safety of the local residents by mobilising various departments and resources at its disposal.
In addition to registering a first information report (FIR) by the police, the state administration has also has set up a three-member committee to conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident.
All these have been done to avoid an environmental catastrophe amidst the ongoing humanitarian crisis that has been brought on by the unfortunate conflict between the Kuki-Chin and Meitei/Meetei people since May 3 last year.
With the incident of reported leakage of furnace oil from the defunct Power Station at Leimakhong occurring at a time when the aggression of armed Kuki-Chin people on the Meitei/Meetei villagers has been intensified, the first reaction of the latter was that it could not be an accidental leak but a sabotage.
And, this led to yet another social media flurry of hurling charges and counter-charges between the two warring communities.
Without any concrete evidence, it is wrong to point fingers at anyone and circulation of a fuzzy video clip in which some people were heard talking in their dialect is definitely not the proof of sabotage.
However, as a report on the news channel NDTV has pointed out, "publicly available information" has thrown up several questions as to the location of the heavy-fuel power plant and its distance to the river.
"The nearest point from the power station to the river is 450 metres, while the farthest point is 2.5 km within Leimakhong. There are buildings, school, church, market and other structures between the river and the power plant. A surface oil leak would have contaminated the areas between the river and the power plant".
But this has not been the case. The news channel also quoted an electrical engineer, who used to work in the power plant while it was operational, as confirming that the facility is a self-contained unit, with no fuel connection outside except the electricity outlet, and thus, ruling out possibility of underground seepage of the toxic heavy fuel from the storage unit as the residual oil from the defunct power station would not be enough in volume to push through the soil till the river as the tank would also act as a shield against the soil.
This revelation certainly needs to be taken serious note of by the state police as well as the government-appointed committee in carrying out their own investigations into the incident of oil spillage from a power station that has been lying defunct for more than two decades in a military zone.
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