Incident Name: United Arab Emirates
Subject: Report - Final
Incident Date: 3/31/1994
Incident Location: east coast of the United Arab Emirates near Fujaira in the Gulf of Oman
Author: Jim Morris
Latitude: 25°03' N (approximate)
Longitude: 56°40' E (approximate)
Product: Iranian light crude (API 33)
Type: 2
Volume: 119,000 barrels
Source:tank vessel
RAR: Birds: diving coastal birds, shorebirds
Recreation: beaches, boat ramps, diving areas
Resource Extraction: subsistence, commercial fisheries
Dispersants: No
Bioremediation: Yes
In-Situ Burning: Yes
Special Interest Topic(s): coarse-gravel beaches, coarse-sand beaches, coastal structures, exposed bedrock bluffs, exposed fine-sand beaches, exposed riprap, exposed rocky platforms, exposed rocky shores, mixed- sediment beaches, piers, riprap, wave-cut platforms
Shoreline Type(s) Impacted: none
Summary: On March 31, 1994, the tanker vessels Seki and Baynuna collided in the Gulf of Oman off the port city of Fujaira, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Seki spilled 16,000 tons of Iranian light crude (API 33). The slick traveled to the west and impacted approximately 30 kilometers (km) of the east coast of UAE. No responsible party was determined, so the spill was treated as a third-party spill.
The UAE government requested assistance from the United States through the USCG Liaison Officer, who, after assessing the situation, requested a team of advisors be sent to UAE to help that government cleanup the spill. The three-member team was composed of representatives from the USCG Pacific Strike Team (PST), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Research and Development, and the NOAA, Hazardous Materials Response and Assessment Division.
The U.S. Advisory Team (USAT) arrived in UAE on the afternoon of April 13, 1994, and received a tour of the spill site by the USCG Liaison Officer and UAE environmental personnel.
Behavior: Iranian light crude is an extremely light oil and 35 to 40 percent of the oil was predicted to evaporate within the first five days of the spill.
The oil originally headed east, away from shore and out into the Gulf of Oman. The prevailing winds then dominated the oil's movement and the slick changed directions 180° and impacted the east coast of the UAE. When the USAT arrived onscene, nearly all the oil had beached.
The shoreline types impacted were medium- and coarse-grain sand, cobble, boulder/riprap, and vertical rock walls. During the first couple of days of shoreline response, 3,500 cubic meters of oiled surface sand was removed manually from the beaches. However, during the ensuing days the sand beaches experienced a depositional period burying layers of fresh oil. The layers of oil were found as deep as 50 centimeters (cm) and ranged from 5 to 15 cm thick.
A major concern for the responders was that the beaches had experienced a depositional phase after being impacted by the oil. Lenses of thick oil were buried as deep as a half of a meter on some beaches.
Countermeasures/Mitigation: The largest concern for the responders was how to remove the heavy concentrations of oil buried in the sediment. The shoreline survey team, composed of the NOAA SSC, a representative from the CEDRE (France's Research and Documentation Center For Accidental Water Pollution), and occasionally a local government representative, identified approximately 25 km of impact within the UAE border (there were reports that the northern tip of the peninsula, Omani territory, had also been oiled) of which 14 km were sandy beaches. Roughly 6 to 8 km of these beaches had buried lenses of heavily oiled sediment. The clean sand overburden ranged from 10 to 50 cm. The lenses were approximately 10 to 15 meters (m) wide and from 5 to 10 cm thick.
The USAT had explained the pros and cons of various mitigation techniques to the UAE officials. The options discussed were:
Beach flushing, either manually or by some type of mechanized system.
Berm relocation.
Sediment removal/treatment and replacement.
Sediment removal and replacement.
Sediment removal without any renourishment of the beach.
Several beach-flushing tests were performed using high-pressure hoses and trenching to agitate the sand and free up the oil causing it flow into a series of trenches leading to a collection point in the lower intertidal zone. This system was not very successful because:
Operating hoses manually limited the size of the swath and prevented effective mobilization of the oil.
Collecting the oil in the lower intertidal area limited the amount of time that the operation could be performed
Collecting the free-floating oil using trenches was not effective.
The next operation to be tested was an Excavator (a tracked vehicle with a bucket that has a 15-m reach) fitted with a series of hoses. The idea was that with this extension arm the flushing could be conducted at the water's edge during a rising tide. The freed oil would then be allowed to flow with the long shore transport to a collection point. The collection point would consist of a shore-barrier boom that would herd the oil into a basin dug into the sand. A skimmer would then be used to remove the collected oil into a holding tank. At the time of the USAT's departure this technique had not been effective because of undersized pumps.
A trial berm relocation was attempted on April 20. One-hundred meters of heavily oiled sandy shoreline were bulldozed into the water at low tide. This method released large quantities of oil very effectively, but created a 2.5-km dark brown plume along the shoreline. Local fishermen complained about the plume and the technique was abandoned.
For the beaches that had a lesser degree of oiling, several techniques were tried including berm relocation, disking, and disking with nutrient enhancement.
Cobble beaches, boulder/riprap, and vertical rock walls that were heavily impacted posed less of a problem because the viable techniques were somewhat limited. Some of the techniques being discussed when the USAT departed were the application of Inipol, nutrient enhancement, and steam cleaning.
A 10- by 10-m test plot on a wave-cut platform with an armoring of well-rounded cobble was set aside for the use of Inipol. The substrate was heavily coated with oil. The Inipol was applied the day before the USAT's departure. A monitoring plan was drafted by the EPA and left with UAE officials.
Steam cleaning was approved in the small fishing harbor of Dadnah, where 200 m of riprap, a boat ramp, and fishing vessels were heavily impacted.
Other Special Interest(s): The affects to this section of the UAE coast concerned the local governments because of a budding tourism industry. Most of the impacted area was pristine coastline and a few of the resorts complained of a marked decrease in patronage. Fishing villages along the coast also suffered from this spill because the local government instituted a ban on all fish and seafood caught from these waters. Local fishermen complained that the fish caught had an oily taste.
While the USAT was onscene, no impact to wildlife was reported. Considering the size of the spill, this was noteworthy.
A small test burn was conducted by the beach cleanup team in one of the collection trenches during a flushing test. Gasoline was poured onto the pooled product and ignited by hand. This technique did not prove to be effective because the oil was apparently too weathered to burn well.
NOAA Activities: NOAA was notified of the spill by the USCG and requested to report onscene. Representatives from NOAA, EPA, and the USCG arrived at the spill site the afternoon of April 13, 1994. The USAT's major functions at this spill were to observe and provide advice to the UAE government. The USAT attended planning and operational meetings daily. The USAT provided the responders with the following informational documents:
an operations plan for cleaning the small fishing harbor in Dadnah
a Daily Site Information Form to be used by beach foremen to report on work progress at the daily meetings
a Shoreline Options Paper that rated the various beach types by their degree of oiling and explained various countermeasures that could be used and their pros and cons
a Long-Term Strategic Plan to be used by the command to identify strategic goals
Team member efforts were as follows;
The USCG, aside from being in charge of the overall operation of the USAT, was very influential in instituting an Incident Command System. When the USAT arrived there was no apparent organization and the responders were finding it difficult to obtain permission to conduct activities. The need for a centralized command system was great because this spill response spanned several nations and cultures. From the United Kingdom there was International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF), Oil Spill Service Cente, and Warren Springs Laboratory. From France there was a representative from CEDRE (French environmental unit specializing in oil spills). There were representatives from the UAE government, the Emirate of Fujaira, and the Port of Fujaira. The cleanup workers were Indian, Pakistani, and Bengali.
The USCG also explained the importance of cost documentation and provided necessary training to government officials.
EPA was very helpful fielding questions from various vendors that purveyed mitigation products. Roughly 60 vendors called the command post or the U.S. Embassy, trying to sell various cleaning and bioremediation agents. The EPA representative in charge of the Inipol test site, wrote a monitoring plan to determine the products effectiveness and worked with the UAE government to establish long-term analytical sampling protocols.
NOAA provided shoreline assessment maps from information obtained during surveys done in conjunction with CEDRE. The SSC also provided examples of documents from past spills on determining "how-clean-is-clean" and provided daily weather reports and tidal information to the command.
Before departing the country, the USAT debriefed the UAE's Minister of Health and the U.S. Ambassador in the capital city of Dubai. The USAT departed the scene on April 26, 1994.
References: NOAA. 1993. ADIOS(tm) (Automated Data Inquiry for oil Spills) User's Manual. Seattle: Hazardous Materials Response and Assessment Division, NOAA. 50 pp.
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