Oil is still washing ashore on Fujairah's beaches five days after a slick, most probably caused by a rogue ship or tanker operator, was first reported. It will take at least two more days to clean up the oil, said an official of Seacor Environmental Services, a company working on the clean-up for Fujairah Municipality. Twelve experts and two boats were deployed to contain and clean up the oil, said Alex Spence, the company's general manager.
Yesterday, guests at some hotels along the Fujairah coast were advised against swimming in the oily water. "The water is too dark. We don't allow the guests to swim," said an employee at a popular beachfront hotel, who did not wish to be identified. The situation appears to have improved since Saturday when the oil began washing ashore, but the water is still too dirty to swim in, the employee said.
"In the morning the water is clear, but after noon, the oil comes back," she said. She added that the incident, the latest in a number of such cases this year, had made tourists "very angry" and that despite the warnings, some were still swimming, only to be covered in oil. "Sometimes it gets stuck in people's hair and then it is very difficult to remove," she said. An employee at a diving-tour operator said tourists "were not smiling" when they returned from their dives.
Hoteliers and leisure companies are becoming less willing to discuss the problem. The general manager of a luxury hotel refused to comment, saying the media attention was creating negative perceptions. Mr Spence said that his company has responded to about 15 oil spills this year, and that the present spill was one of the largest. Seacor has deployed 1,600 metres of booms to stop the spread of oil.
Authorities said the problems were exacerbated by the fact that ships illegally dumped oil, sludge and other chemicals into the ocean outside UAE territorial waters. "Many of these spills occur in international waters. Until they enter UAE borders, they are not the responsibility of the country," said Eng Ali Qasim, head of the municipality's environmental department. More than half of all ships entering the Gulf stop in Fujairah for refuelling, repair and crew changes.
Last month, the Gulf became a special area under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. Under the convention, the governments of Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE should have mandatory methods to prevent pollution of the sea. However, both industry and government sources say enforcement is lax. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Environment said it was working with the Regional Clean Sea Organisation, an oil industry body, to draft a contingency plan to respond to spills and other pollution.
An agreement between the two bodies is expected in early 2009. vtodorova@thenational.ae