Yet Another Massive Oilspill
The New York Times reports that officials in China are now requiring that all ports in China revise their operations to better prevent oil spills after last week's pipeline explosion.
This is another example of too little too late. So long as crude oil is transported by tankers and/or pipelines, there will be a risk of spills. If all we can hope for and expect is to wait at length for regulations to improve conditions to lessen spills, what do we do in the meantime to cope with the environmental impacts of spills?
Various reports have shown that the Chinese are ill-equipped and ill-prepared to deal with the spills. The Associated Press even reported that one firefighter named Zhang Liang, just 25 years old, died while aiding in the clean up efforts after falling into the water and drowning, and that people who cleaned up the blackened beaches had no protective gear apart from rubber gloves. The report that documented the earliest clean-up efforts also stated that clean-up crews didn't have proper equipment, so they used chopsticks to pick up tar balls that came ashore. Now that a week has past, hopefully the authorities have managed to mobilize resources to equip clean-up crews with adequate and effective tools and supplies.
The oil spill, at the port city of Dalian, is the result of a pipeline explosion on July 16. The first explosion triggered a similar burst at a smaller pipeline near Xingang Harbor. Both pipelines are owned by China National Petroleum Corporation, one of the large state-run oil enterprises.
Ironically, the pipeline explosion came on the heels of the International Energy Agency’s announcement that China had surpassed the United States as the world’s top energy consumer. I suppose the top-ranked energy consumption position comes with an equally top-ranked environmental cost!
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