Contingency Aanalysis of Hfo Spill Using SAR Iimages Aerial Oboservation of the Event and Sediment Sample Analysis
Gambheer, PHANI RAJ; Kvsr, PRASAD
ANDHRA UNIVERSITY, INDIA

EVENT A Merchant ship MV Rak Carrier carrying 60000 Tons of coal from Lubuk Tutung (Indonesia) bound to Dahej harbor in Gujarat, while at Mumbai outer anchorage waiting for replenishment, on 04 August 2011, developed holes and sank at a depth of around 36 mtrs. The sinking position was 20 nautical miles (36 km) west south west of Mumbai colaba pt. The vessel immediately started leaking oil which normally is unusual and shows poor maintenance of ship by her owners. The case study identifies the challenges in oil spill response, application of Science and Technology for understanding response/ preparedness criteria and assist responders to tackle the challenges identified. The key to response and most difficult task is determining the location and distribution of potential pollutant, its quantity in the water medium namely on the surface, water column, sea bed and ultimately a contaminated shoreline. This should be achieved by time series remote sensing of the event location and conduct mathematical and hydrodynamic modeling studies. All these analyses lead to ascertain the quantity of potential pollutant, results in actual pollution and damage assessment and assist responders in clean up. These actions become mandatory and paid for because polluter has to clean up the pollutant or in the event polluter fails to take action, clean up and damage restoration charges/costs need to be paid by the polluter in accordance with international conventions. CHALLENGES 2. The most important challenge is ascertaining the type and quantity of oil IN CASE OF BUNKER FUEL that has entered the marine environment as pollutant. The type of oil is essential piece of information as it derives the behaviour of the oil in the marine environment and the quantity of oil determines the damage caused to the environment. Accounting for the pollutant/oil that has entered marine environment including its behaviour in-situ over time is called OIL BUDGET. This finding needs knowledge of oil and its behaviour in the prevailing weather conditions. The variables are too many and needs science and technology to evaluate quickly to assist response in time. The time is the essence in efficient response. To bring in science and make things easy to the response personnel to understand, modern day Technology is required. Thus oil budget is the key to damage assessment. Damage assessment will assist in preparation of claims for reimbursement of clean up costs. This activity involves economics and hence subject to scrutiny from legal angle. Thus these actions have great significance and hence have to be undertaken in a standard and flawless manner. The Response to the spill depends on preparedness and knowing in advance what will happen to the oil and where it will go to become what is mandatory. The quantity of oil and its location will determine the effort for response and resources quantification and deployment. Hence important ingredients to be known in the first place are type of oil spilled, quantity of oil spilled and finally its location. These inputs are hard to gather unless we are prepared in advance. Therefore these inputs can be the challenges. The type of oil can be ascertained from the Ship’s crew which in this case was not done. The quantity of oil present on board was known. The location input has to be gathered by aerial surveillance, satellite observations or by radar data of the area. Hence it is recommended that probable spill locations have to be kept under surveillance since oil spill episodes are incident based and can happen any time. How helpful and important is the satellite observation is analysed in the writeup.