Oil spill in the Philippines

[Johncn]

Latest oil spill data from the Philippine Space Agency yesterday.

"The map from NOAA dating 02 April 2023 shows that the oil slick has reached the island of Coron, Palawan."

No specific mention of the Verde Island Passage (VIP) encompasing Verde Island / Puerto Galera and Anilao is made..which may be good news. No data was available (likely due to cloud cover or satellite pass limits) for the Tablas / Romblon area. Some areas are just marked as "No Data" beyond the hashed line.

There are three associated interpolated satellite images of different regions jointly produced by NOAA and other agencies working with the Philippines which were made available via Twitter and press releases.

 

[Centrals]

Has the wreck stopped leaking oil already?

 

[Johncn]

No, it is still leaking. The Japanese ROV located the wreck at about 400 meters deep (~1300 feet), but was unable to assist in plugging the leak and/or siphoning off the ~800,000 liters of fuel oil. Just today the US was supposed to provide an advanced ROV under direction of the the US Navy Supervisor of Salvage & Diving, as well as other support equipment and expertise. The South Korean government is also assisting. Let’s hope they get her plugged and start removing that oil soon!

US Navy sends remote sub, boats and booms to assist in oil spill response

The operations of the US Navy’s Hydros ROV will commence on April 3.

www.philstar.com

 

[Centrals]

The problem hasn't been solved yet and the risk is still there.
In couple of months it will be typhoon season....
Hate to think about the consequences if the wreck break up before the removal of the oil.

 

[ffuser1]

Buceo Anilao emailed this to me a few days ago: It has had a bad effect in some areas including Verde Island. Luckily we have had no harm in our usual dive sites but there are some small signs along the beach on the other side which actually acted as a buffer that protected this area.

They are not doing trips to Verde Island now

And gets updates from: MSI Bulletin: Updates on the MT Princess Empress Oil Spill

Looks like Coron might be affected

 

[clownfishsydney]

Some friends dived Anilao last week and this week Puerto Galera. No sign of any oil spill that they have seen.

 

[theblitz1]

Many thanks again to @Hcklo and @Centrals for the advice. We did roll the dice, made the trip, and went out in PG yesterday and Verde Island just today. No sign of oil. So fingers crossed for the next 8 days, and then into the future as well.
I hate to think it's going to take widespread tourist cancellations to cause someone to do something about the tanker, but that might be inevitable. For now, diving continues in and around PG.

 

[Damselfish]

Even if they try to soft-pedal things a bit, I don’t think its that they don’t want to do anything or would be more inspired by tourist cancellations. Sure sounds they’re doing stuff and calling in other countries. But it took a Japanese ROV just to exactly locate the tanker and it’s below 1000 ft. Stopping it from leaking, off loading the oil, or stopping all thats already leaked from going wherever is not exactly trivial.

 

[theblitz1]

Even if they try to soft-pedal things a bit, I don’t think its that they don’t want to do anything or would be more inspired by tourist cancellations. Sure sounds they’re doing stuff and calling in other countries. But it took a Japanese ROV just to exactly locate the tanker and it’s below 1000 ft. Stopping it from leaking, off loading the oil, or stopping all thats already leaked from going wherever is not exactly trivial.

Hey, I don't live in the Philippines, and I know it's a completely different place. But if an oil tanker sank off Seattle in Puget Sound, I'm pretty sure they would have found its location before three weeks and maybe even attempted to stop the flow.
Again, I realize the Philippines does not have that infrastructure, and we can be sad about that even while realizing people on the front lines have to work with what they have. This is definitely not trivial and I hope the world summons more help. Because having now dived these sites yesterday, I appreciate the ecosystem even more.

 

[Johncn]

As a US citizen who was diving the Philippines while this happened, and tried to follow the news pretty closely, it certainly seemed to me that we slow-walked the assistance and are keeping it limited in scope. Perhaps something to do with domestic US politics? Got me.

I do know that the Japanese and Koreans stepped right up. The Philippines is too important an ally to have allowed a month go by without direct assistance from my country… a nation that has extensive industrial accident and recovery expertise available - both in and out of government - and probably had relevant equipment in the region.

I sure hope we are doing all we can do now to protect these resources and help our friends…but I am not getting that sense from current news reports. I hope I am wrong.