Philippines Creates Task Force to Clean Up Massive Oil Spill

The M/T Princess Empress sank off the coast of Naujan town in Oriental Mindoro province on February 28. The resultant oil spill will be monitored by a task force established by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

Immediate Response

The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in Mimaropa (Marinduque, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Palawan, and Romblon) will be the task force's team leader.

The NDRRMC Executive Director and Civil Defense Administrator, Undersecretary Ariel Nepomuceno, "organized an inter-agency task force in a memorandum issued on March 3, 2023, to monitor developments and implement measures to contain the spread of the oil spill, recover the spilled fuel, and conduct emergency response activities to the areas that may be affected by the incident," the agency said in a statement on Friday.

Sectors Involved

The task force member agencies include the Mimaropa offices of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Health (DOH), as well as the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), Philippine National Police (PNP), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG)-Southern Tagalog District, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Southern Luzon Command, and the Mimaropa local government units.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is now conducting coastline inspections and deploying equipment and resources to control and recover the oil spill.

Together with the Coast Guard Substation Oriental Mindoro, the DENR-Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) is collaborating on a water sample operation.

Coastal cleanup efforts are also being carried out by joint teams of uniformed people and regional government agencies.

OCD continued, "An emergency conference regarding the incident was previously convened by video teleconferencing last March 3, 2023, between OCD authorities, the AFP, and PCG Southern Tagalog to consider potential response actions to control and minimize the dangerous impacts of the oil spill.

According to the most recent reports, the oil spill in Oriental Mindoro had reached the coastal regions of the towns of Pola, Pinamalayan, Naujan, and Bongabong.

Before the incident, the M/T Princess Empress carried 800,000 liters of heavy fuel oil. Twenty men that made up its crew were successfully saved.

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Dangers of Oil Spill

The degree of damage an oil spill produces depends on several factors, including the location of the spill, the types of plants, animals, and habitats present there, as well as the quantity and kind of the oil. Oil spills typically impact marine life in two ways:

Fouling or oiling: Fouling or oiling occurs when oil physically harms a plant or animal. Oil can coat a bird's wings and leave it unable to fly or strip away the insulating properties of a sea otter's fur, putting it at risk of hypothermia. The degree of oiling often impacts the animal's chances of survival.

Oil toxicity: Oil consists of many different toxic compounds. These toxic compounds can cause severe health problems like heart damage, stunted growth, immune system effects, and even death. Our understanding of oil toxicity has expanded by studying the impact of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Difficulty to Clean

Unfortunately, cleanup efforts can never completely stop an oil spill, so scientists must avoid doing more harm than good. Scientists discovered that the high-pressure, hot-water hoses used to clean up beaches after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill did more damage than the oil itself. While cleaning up an oil spill, sensitive habitats require additional care.

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