Tar balls: Govt vows emergency plan
HERALD REPORTER
MARGAO, AUG 31
The government has promised to put an emergency plan in place by Wednesday evening to tackle the tar ball menace along the Colva-Sernabatim-Betalbatim belt along Salcete’s coast, even as fresh deposits of the oily substance was spotted along the coastal belt on Tuesday.
Fire men and labourers got down to the mammoth task of cleaning tar balls on the beach on Tuesday along the Colva stretch of the coastline. The Goa State Pollution Control Board officials also made their presence felt at the beach with a mobile laboratory and collected samples of the oily substance.
Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira along with Tourism Minister, Nilkhant Harlankar, Tourism Director Swapnil Naik, Valanka Alemao, Colva Panch Calvert Gonsalves inspected the beach and took stock of the situation.
Sequeira said the government will work out an emergency plan of action by Wednesday after receiving report from the Pollution Control Board. “We are trying to clean up the beach stretch as fast as we can. As of now, the Goa Pollution Control Board has collected the samples and the report will be available within 48 hours. Hopefully, by Wednesday, we will be able to put in place an emergency plan to tackle the situation”, informed the Minister for Environment, Aleixo Sequeira.
The minister disagreed that the coastline has been hit by a disaster, adding that the State has witnessed tar balls surfacing along the coast year after year. He also said the Mumbai oil spill has nothing to do with the tar balls and refuted reports of any oil spill in the sea. “The Mumbai spill has nothing to do with the tar balls. The tar balls surfacing along the coast is an annual phenomenon in Goa. They say that the tar balls settle on the sea bed during off season and land on the shore during monsoons”, he said.
The Tourism Minister said no effort will be spared to clean up the beach as early as possible. He said the department has already deployed workers for the clean up work.
While a Coast Guard helicopter hovered over the Arabian Sea this morning, the fire services led by Assistant Fire Divisional Officer, Prakash Parab told newsmen that the entire exercise will require a large army of workers to clean up the beach stretch.
Incidentally, the Environment Minister claimed that none of the village panchayats on the coastal belt affected by the tar balls have complained either to him or to the Tourism Minister about the oily substance. “I came to know of the situation following a complaint from Valanka. Otherwise, none of the panchayat bodies have drawn my attention to the menace on the beach”, Sequeira added.
Meanwhile, the carcass of a dolphin was washed ashore on the Colva beach Tuesday morning.
