Borneo Oil Spill Update
It is now exactly 3 weeks after the horrendous oil spill that covered 70% of the Balikpapan Bay with oil in Indonesia. I have been trying to research what has been happening since the fire and I am shocked there isn’t more informaton about it considering how large it was. There are loads of articles written within the first week f the disaster – March 31 to April 4th, 2018 – but very little after.
According to an article on the Lifegate website (April 12th) the Balikpapan Bay spill had reached 120 square miles in size.
An investigation has revealed that the crude oil came from a fractured pipe in the Tanjung Penajam line of state-owned energy company Pertamina.
The Lowly Institute wrote a great article on the effect the spill would have on the poor as almost 15 million coastal dwellers – approximately 6% of Indonesia’s total population – are deemed poor or very poor. Some of the effects they experienced were:
- Difficulties breathing
- Nausea
- Vomitting
- Headaches
- No access to protein other thad containated fish or seafood
Six days after the incident, Balikpapan Environmental Agency head Suryanto claimed the cleaning process had reached 90 percent and the cleanup would end this week (April 7th 2018). No where near 90% of the spilled oil was cleaned up as all the oil that sinks can’t be cleaned up. Scientists and Greenpeace state that no more than 20% of a spill can ever be clean up.
It was interesting to learn in the Lowly Institute article that Indonesia has the second largest coastline in the world. Second to… You guessed it! CANADA! Let us hope and pray that we never have to deal with a spill like this in Vancouver, BC.
https://www.lifegate.com/people/lifestyle/balikpapan-oil-spill-indonesia-impact
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/borneo-oil-spill-costs-indonesia-s-poor
