Bunker fuel in Guimaras to be siphoned on March 8

By Ronron
February 7, 2007

The remaining bunker fuel in the sunken MT Solar 1 vessel in Guimaras province will be siphoned starting March 8, officials said.

National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) Executive Officer Glenn Rabonza and Presidential Assistant for Western Visayas Rafael Coscolluela said in separate interviews Wednesday that the International Oil Pollution Compensation (IOPC) fund has already approved the hiring of SONSUD salvage company, based in Singapore, to execute the operations.

“We are working towards the siphoning of the remaining oil from the sunken Solar 1. The date is on March 8. That was the window where there will be calmer weather and we don’t expect typhoons,” Rabonza told reporters in a briefing at Camp Aguinaldo yesterday afternoon.

The officials said the siphoning operations will last within three to four weeks, and will cost at least $8 million. The IOPC, an organization of oil-consuming countries the world over, including the Philippines, will shoulder the expenses.

MT Solar 1 was sailing towards Zamboanga City from Bataan, loaded with 2.1 million liters of Petron oil products, when it sank off Guimaras in the afternoon of August 11, 2006 after it was hit by strong waves.

Coscolluela said some 400,000 liters of the oil leaked into the sea, damaging 1,143.45 hectares of Marine Reserves of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), 234.84 kilometers of coastline, 15.8 square kilometers of coral reef, 478.48 hectares of mangrove, 107 hectares of seaweed farms, and 974 hectares of fishpond.

A total of 8,580 families or 42,109 individuals from 65 barangays of Guimaras and Iloilo were affected by the tragedy.

“For the residents, this (siphoning) will be a big relief. That has always really been their demand because their apprehension about the spillage of the remaining fuel was very strong,” Coscolluela said.

He disclosed that the people have long gone back to their residences, particularly those living along the shorelines, and the fisherfolks have been back to fishing already.

“By and large, we’re seeing normalization. They have gone back to fishing,” said Coscolluela.

There are complaints, however, by some fisherman of a reduced fish catch. But it could not yet be ascertained if it is an effect of the oil spill.

Coscolluela said the IOPC also has already released some P120 million in compensation to some of the 11,000 approved claims, mostly by fisherfolks, and more are expected to follow.

“It’s possible that (the compensation cost) will even exceed P250 million because they are still reviewing the rest of the claims. The IOPC received more than 18,000 claims,” Coscolluela said.

As of now, he said only four mangrove areas in Guimaras, one in Ajuy town in Iloilo, and one in Concepcion, Iloilo, remain to be regarded as problem areas that require clean up activities.

Coscolluela and Rabonza said the NDCC, IOPC, SONSUD representatives and the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) will meet on February 20 at Camp Aguinaldo to brief newly-appointed Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane, Jr. about the siphoning operations, and to finalize the plan as well.

Coscolluela said the PCG is particularly tasked to come up with contingency measures when it assists SONSUD in the siphoning operations in case of unexpected undesired eventualities, like a damage of the pipe that will suck the bunker oil./DMS