An Oil-Bath, Anyone?

For long, beached vessels have been a common sight just off the coasts of Maharashtra and Goa. Perennial eyesores which the state governments, after preliminary investigations, preferred to ignore and tour operators made money out of, a la Hong Kong's Kowloon Harbour in the 1980 Bond thriller, The Man with the Golden Gun. That may change soon, with New Delhi frowning on the serious environmental hazards of allowing single-hull old vessels carrying crude oil into its ports.

Experts say more than 40 per cent of the crude coming in at the ports on the western coast is carried by such accident-prone old tankers. Such accidents, coupled with regular dumping of untreated organic waste and sewage, have raised oil pollution to alarming proportions in the Arabian Sea, the common route for nearly 70 per cent of oil movement in the region. As many as four major beaches in Goa, including Calangute and Candolim, are being given the go-by by tourists as the water there remains coated with a thin film of oil throughout the year. Even bilge washing (clean-up of vessel tanks) reaching the coast is wreaking havoc with Maharashtra's coastal ecosystem, in the absence of monitoring personnel.

Says Indian National Shipowners Association (insa) secretary general S.S. Kulkarni: "Indian shipping laws are not strict enough to prevent such vessels from entering our waters. And sometimes, one can't do much because a large number of shipowners fly on their vessels what is commonly known as the flag-of-convenience from nations which rarely follow International Maritime Organisation (imo) regulations and, as a result, cannot be taken to task."

How did the problem get aggravated? For decades, international shipowners, taking optimum advantage of lax Indian shipping regulations, have been sending single-hull vessels over 25 years old. Plagued by poor maintenance and ill-equipped crews, these vessels often beach on the heavily crowded west coast. On an average, there are five to six accidents a year, compounding what is already a serious environmental crisis.

In a study last year, the ministry of environment and forests pointed out that oil pollutants, industrial waste and untreated sewage were depleting oxygen supplies across the entire western coastline. It cited the example of Versova and Mahim creeks and the Mumbai harbour, where dissolved oxygen at low tide is almost zero, making the areas unable to sustain aquatic life. As a result, heavy metal deposition on the seafloor off Maharashtra and Gujarat has increased at an alarming rate. Metals like cadmium, lead, manganese and zinc have been found in benthic core samples to depths of up to 45 cm along with large amount of pesticides, particularly off the Maharashtra and Goan coasts. The study advocated immediate corrective measures like dredging and the removal of the contaminated sediments.

"Sadly, the crisis may continue because the government does not even have a shipping policy in place. Ironically, even as international shipowners continue to send old accident-prone vessels to our shores, Indian shipping companies are bound by stringent regulation which forces them to operate Class I vessels on the high seas," rues Kulkarni of the insa.

Senior officials of the shipping ministry acknowledge the crisis but suggest few remedies. Government and private companies rarely coordinate with state coastal authorities in checking the seaworthiness of single-hull vessels transporting supplies (especially of chemicals and oil).As a result, global companies find it convenient to rely on such old, decaying vessels which fly flags of tax-friendly countries like Liberia and Panama.

"Monitoring all movements of vessels on the high seas is not possible. Besides, single-hull vessels are not forbidden to enter Indian waters. A ship is as good as the maintenance to which it is subject. We cannot practise what developed nations like the Netherlands and Norway follow. The imo wants to phase out all such vessels by 2010. Till then, we do not have any options," shipping secretary M.P. Pinto told Outlook. "The Indian Ocean Rim Countries are currently sharing information on such rogue vessels and continuously checking their seaworthiness."

According to Pinto, the issue is less of age than of maintenance. Single-hull vessels often disregard international rules and the onus is more on individual ports which should exercise the right to inspect vessels likely to cause pollution. Besides, most of these vessels do not employ nationalised crews and pick up cheap labour from developing countries. "The nine-nation International Association of Clearing Society ranks vessels according to their seaworthiness. But old vessels keep changing their ranks by going to alternate agencies. And there are many of them. So, they're perfectly within the purview of the law to enter our waters," adds Pinto.

But experts admit that not many states have adequate checking controls. They cite two recent examples in Goa. One was when a Zuari Agro Industries tanker beached at Barcem-Paddi, leaking 11 tonnes of ammonia gas. The other was when MV River Princess, a general cargo ship, drifted and ran aground at the Candolim coast, spilling oil from its tanks. This year, a host of tour operators and hoteliers have told the Goa government that they were faced with repeated complaints from tourists who found sea waters unfit for bathing. "The awareness level is extremely low since in most cases the matters are handled by state-level bureaucrats who don't see this as a crisis. And that is the reason the vessels in Goa are still stuck in the waters. The second problem is the region's proximity to West Asia and large movement of oil tankers on the route. This also aggravates the crisis," remarks Great Eastern Shipping director Sudhir Mulji.

Agrees Narendra Taneja, South Asian bureau chief of Trade Winds, the world's largest shipping newspaper: "Thankfully, Goa and Mumbai have so far been spared of any major calamity. But what kind of disaster management programme do the states have, if they are not monitoring movement of old vessels?" According to him, since the Indian certification system judges the seaworthiness of a vessel on the basis of maintenance and not on age, flouting these rules is easy.

He should know. Two years ago, senior officials of the imo who visited India stressed the need to improve the quality of shipping with increased coordination among shipping authorities, shipowners and maritime training organisations, urging them to take serious steps to check oil spills and accidents on the high seas by framing strict rules and conventions. In fact, at the recent meeting of the imo's Marine Environment Protection Committee, one of the core issues debated was that of the rising number of accidents of single-hull tankers in the Asian waters.

Indian Maritime Institute president K. Chidambaram feels governments of coastal states should take a lesson from the recent incident of the fully-laden 31,068-dwt tanker Castor, which suffered damages in the Mediterranean Sea en route Lagos, Nigeria. "Immediately after the accident, the American certifying agency withdrew all certificates from the company so as to prevent a recurrence. Indian states must also enforce international laws with an iron hand," says Chidambaram. Till that happens, environmental tensions on the western coast are set to escalate.