When a team of divers took part in a clean-up campaign off the East Coast, the scale of their task was highlighted when one of the first divers finally emerged from the water. Fiona Baker’s hair and wetsuit were stained with a thick black sludge.
Gulf waters are among the most polluted in the world because of oil leaks from vessels travelling through the Gulf and the illegal dumping of ballast and bilge water.
An environment protection company in Khor Fakkan is trying to emphasise the link between this kind of marine pollution and such human diseases as cancer, asthma, diabetes and heart problems. Mahmood Saberi, Nissar Hoath and Tahseen Shaghouri look into the issue.
Environmental pollution does not observe any boundaries, says Ebrahim Al Zu¡'bi, director of environmental projects at the Dubai-based Emirates Diving Association.
He points to a map of the Gulf waters and explains the devastating effect that oil leaks have on fish and marine life. "Oil stays on the surface of the water in a thin layer and cuts off light to the coral reefs below. It is also ingested by fish and sea birds and has a serious impact on their chances of survival."
Al Zu¡'bi is passionate about the Gulf's marine environment and after pointing out some of Dubai's former diving sites that have been lost due to dredging and landfill he says oil pollution could be a major challenge to water desalination plants.
The UAE is set to become even more dependent on water taken from the sea and purified. When this water is taken from a coastline crowded with oil tankers, it presents a delicate and precarious situation.
There have already been several cases where desalination plants had to be shut down because of accidents involving oil tankers off the coast of the UAE.
"The high evaporation rate and increased salinity of the water simply add to the problem," Al Zui'bi says.
Oil spills often go unnoticed, especially when they are caused not by accidents but by the ignorance of crews who dump ballast water or bilge waste in the Gulf.
Waste dumped by these passing ships created a major problem for the Zulal drinking water plant in Sharjah a few years ago, according to an engineer there. The plant, which is owned by the Sharjah Electricity and Water Department (Sewa), had to shut down for a few days every time ballast waste was dumped by a ship.
"The solution is easy," Al Zu¡'bi says. "Set up an environment audit and create environmental units in all the emirates." The first step in this direction was recently launched by the Federal Environmental Agency (FEA), which has established a unit to manage information about pollution accidents. The Operation Room for Marine Emergencies is in Dubai.
"It will coordinate measures to combat pollution," according to a senior official from FEA.
It has set up a toll-free number (800-4780), so people can call and report pollution cases and accidents. A website is also being set up. It will include a form that can be filled by anyone wishing to provide information about a pollution incident.
Violation of law
It seems the operation room, however, is not yet running at full power. When Gulf News called the toll-free number, no one answered.
The UAE law forbids the discharge of oil or ballast water and stiff penalties are imposed on those who are caught polluting the sea. Oil executives say it has had little effect.
Like many other organisations that have moved to Dubai, the Regional Clean Sea Organisation has relocated its headquarters from Bahrain as part of a plan to develop a more proactive oil spill response base in the region, according to its chairman, Khamis Juma Bu Ameen. The Regional Clean Sea Organisation was set up in 1972 by 13 founding members. Its common objective is to protect the Gulf's resources from oil pollution because about 21 million barrels of the region's crude oil are transported by tankers everyday through the Gulf waters.
The organisation is located in an office tower on Shaikh Zayed Road and its members include such major oil players as Adnoc and Saudi Aramco as well as national tanker companies, ports and harbours.
"The prevailing geopolitical situation has created extra strains and has added new challenges to the task of safeguarding the Gulf environment and the security of its ports, terminals and tanker operations," Bu Ameen says.
He points to two major stress factors: rapid industrial development and a growing population that relies heavily on treated and desalinated water from the Gulf.
This year, his organisation will hold a forum dubbed "Offshore Arabia in Dubai," which will review international environmental policies and regulations aimed at maintaining and protecting marine ecology.
Ahmad Buhari, president and chief executive of the Emirates Environmental Protection Company (ECO), says the problem lies in the fact that no-one has considered the sea as their responsibility.
"The sea has often been treated as public property with no individual taking responsibility for ensuring its survival." He echoes an adage: "Ecology and economics can never go hand in hand. One or the other has to be sacrificed."
Buhari says the Gulf, with its 7,000-year history of maritime trade, is today under threat from unsafe maritime practices. ECO is the first organisation in the GCC states to set up a plant for the treatment of petroleum waste, at the Khor Fakkan port. "Increasing industrialisation in developing countries, the rat race among developed countries and exponential growth in demand for fossil fuel has blinded everyone to the dangers of over-exploitation of our natural resources," he says.
Modern shipping cannot operate without ballast water, which provides balance and stability to ships without a full load. The ballast is discharged when the ship loads cargo once again. Ballast, however, contains residual oil.
The ballast water is dumped near the shore because ships cannot travel too far without it and because companies do not want to pay to recycle it. Refining facilities that separate the sludge from the water are expensive and money is not just the bottom line, but often it is the only line. Such greed ultimately causes the death of many species and poses health risks to humans, one environmental analyst says.
Ballast water also contains potentially thousands of aquatic species picked up from thousands of miles away: bacteria, micro algae, small invertebrates, eggs, spores, seeds, cysts and larvae that are foreign to the Gulf environment. When a ship discharges this cargo, it creates a huge environmental problem.
"Unlike oil spills, for which humans have developed a huge range of responses and clean-up options, once an invading species has established a viable population in a new environment, it is almost impossible to remove," says Steve Raaymakers from the UK's International Maritime Organisation.
He estimates that more than 10,000 different species of marine microbes may be carried globally in ballast water each day. Raaymakers has taken part in a seminar by the Regional Clean Sea Organisation and presented a paper on the economic, ecological and human health impacts of ballast water.
Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and the United States have introduced regulations that prevent ships from discharging ballast water that contains "non-native harmful species of aquatic life forms."
Disastrous impact
Another expert, Dr Vahid Yavari of Iran, says the Gulf region's response to the problem is "poor to non-existent." This lack of awareness of the disastrous impact of unwanted organisms has placed ballast water management at the bott
