ENVIRONMENTALISTS yesterday said marine life could have been harmed after a tanker supplying fuel oil to a terminal in the occupied village of Gastria in the Karpas peninsula, spilled at least one tonne of petroleum in the area on Wednesday evening but only reported it yesterday.
Gastria, known as Kalecik in the north, lies north of Bogazi on Famagusta bay, a busy area with two existing fuel terminals and plans for a third. Environmentalists and locals are already vocal against building an oil terminal with storage capacity of one million cubic metres, further north near the village of Eptakomi, known in the north as Yedikonuk.
Green Action Group’s Dogan Sahir yesterday said that the oil spill in Gastria validated their opposition. The Green Party did the same, marking their disagreement to the Eptakomi terminal plans “which will increase the dangers of repeating such accidents since supplying fuel to the area will be much more common place.
Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis said the accident in Gastria was the result of negligence, but quoted authorities as saying the spillage was not big enough to cause any real damage to the environment. But Sahir told the Cyprus Mail that with oil spills spreading fast over kilometres, any damage to marine life was already done.
Part of the concern is the need to use solvents to deal with the spill despite their effect to wildlife – including migratory birds now in the area, Sahir said. But the oil company tried to deal with the problem overnight on Wednesday but only alerted the authorities the following day, he said. “Cases like that should be handled immediately, otherwise there is no chance to solve (the problem),” Sahir said. “(Now), there is no chance to fix things,” he said.
Another expert said that the technicians and experts on the scene reported that the situation was under control with barriers in place to control spread, and oil absorbent material being used in addition to the solvents.
“The big issue is actually that the area has a number of eastern Mediterranean countries bordering its seas, dumping waste, ships carrying petroleum, a lot of marine traffic and rubbish ending up the shores,” the biologist and marine expert said on condition of anonymity. “In general there are many oil spills that are not being reported,” the expert said but also added that people should pick their battles.
“As I understand it this is a minor problem but when you blame people for even the minor things then when something big happens and there is a real issue they will just claim that you shout every time.”