News
Monsoon blows away Feb deadline to remove X-Press Pearl wreck
- MEPA says salvage op will last well into next year
- Environmentalists say authorities dragging feet over country’s worst maritime disaster; and being overly protective of ship operators
The Xpress Pearl wreckage: Sri Lanka’s worst maritime disaster
Removal of the wreckage of the container vessel X-Press Pearl will not be finished on schedule due to the onset of the monsoon, authorities admitted this week, as the Government missed the deadline announced in February for the completion of the salvage operation.
On February 1, the Government announced that the removal of the wreck would be completed in four months. But the salvage operation has been halted due to rough seas owing to the arrival of the southwest monsoon, Dharshani Lahandapura, Chairperson Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) told the Sunday Times. Much of the wreckage still remains at the bottom of the ocean more than a year after the disaster. The salvage operation will only recommence after the monsoon ends and is now set to last well into next year.
Nevertheless, China’s Shanghai Salvage Company (SSC), which won the contract for the vessel’s removal, has a ship onsite continuously monitoring the wreckage and concerned parties are sending daily reports on the situation, Ms Lahandapura said. “The salvage experts said it was the most difficult salvage operation they had ever undertaken, but the vessel is being constantly monitored. The operation will recommence once the monsoon ends.”
Environmentalists though, are critical of what they perceive as lethargy on the part of authorities to move towards obtaining compensation for damages caused by the country’s worst maritime disaster and holding the ship’s operators to account.
Nurdles washed up on a Negombo beach last week
For example, post-mortem reports into the deaths of several hundred marine mammals whose carcasses washed up on the beaches in the weeks following the disaster are yet to be released. Authorities have cited ongoing court cases regarding the X-Press Pearl as reasons for not releasing such information.
“We’ve been telling them this from the beginning. We don’t understand why they are being so protective,” said Muditha Katuwawala, Coordinator of the volunteer-based conservation group The Pearl Protectors (TPP), In the absence of information, various unfounded theories regarding the disaster have been circulating in society but authorities have not bothered to correct them, he added.
The X-Press Pearl was carrying tons of nitric acid, caustic soda, methanol, epoxy resins and low-density polyethylene pellets, among other chemicals and goods when it caught fire off the Colombo coast on May 20 last year. It was also carrying 348 tons of bunker fuel, some of which leaked into the sea. Of the vessel’s 1486 containers, 81 were carrying dangerous goods. There were 87 containers carrying several types of plastic pellets.
A year after the disaster, these plastic pellets, known as “nurdles” continue to wash up on beaches. Volunteers from TPP have been engaged in clean-up operations on the affected beaches since last July. They have collected more than 1500 kilograms of plastic debris from the beaches under their “Nurdle Free Lanka” campaign.
The nurdles that were covered up in the sand are now starting to emerge and washing up due to the ongoing monsoon season. With the worst of the monsoon still to come, Mr Katuwawala fears that more nurdles will wash up towards July and August. Notably, they haven’t seen many carcasses of marine mammals washing up this year. “When carcasses started washing up this time last year, authorities said it was more due to the monsoon than the ship. We are 1 ½ months into the monsoon now but we aren’t seeing carcasses washing up, so we can easily say that the ship was responsible.”
Obtaining compensation for the disaster has also been difficult owing to a variety of factors, notably due to lack of planning and plain disinterest by authorities, claimed Hemantha Withanage, Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ). “We have made an interim claim of USD 40 million in compensation but have got just USD 3.6 million so far. Even USD 40 million is next to nothing given the scale of the disaster and what other nations affected by similar disasters have demanded from vessel”
The Government received an initial payment of USD 3.6 million from the vessel’s operators through their insurers to cover costs incurred in fighting the fire aboard the ship and compensate the fishing community affected by the disaster. The Treasury confirmed the payment of a second USD 1.75 million interim payment in February this year to assist the fishing community.
The Attorney General’s Department is negotiating with the vessel’s insurers P & I Club on Sri Lanka’s compensation claims, Ms Lahandapura said.
She rejected accusations regarding lack of transparency, claiming that the Australian legal consultants hired by authorities had given clear instructions cautioning against releasing information such as the contents of the post-mortem reports into the deaths of marine mammals prior to going for litigation. Australian law firm Sparke Helmore Lawyers is assisting Sri Lanka with claims related to environmental damage.
Meanwhile, an expert panel commissioned to recommend legislative amendments to the MEPA Act have now completed their report and the concept paper has been submitted to Cabinet. The Cabinet in turn had instructed that the document be forwarded to relevant government agencies for their observations. Some of the agencies have raised certain concerns and MEPA will be meeting with them to finalise the draft, Ms Lahandapura revealed.
MEPA’s cleanup of affected beaches also continues with an average of 200 people, most of them from the local community, engaged in removing the nurdles and other debris. The pollution is still mostly concentrated in the Gampaha district, particularly around the Sarakkuwa area in Negombo.
There are however, “pockets of pollution” in various other places along the coast and as such, beach cleanups will now be extended to the Puttalam district and the southern coast with the assistance of the divisional secretariats, the MEPA chairperson said. Over 67, 000 man days have been put in so far to collect about 1800 metric tonnes of debris from the vessel. The collected debris is currently stored at a MEPA-run warehouse and the authority is in discussions with various parties involved in waste management regarding how best to dispose of the waste.
Some fisheries associations though are unhappy with the compensation scheme, which they say lacks transparency.
The first compensation payments differed widely, from as little as Rs. 15, 000 for a small fishing boat to as much as Rs. 80, 000 for a multi-day fishing trawler. The only fishermen’s representatives on the committee appointed to oversee the compensation were from one aligned to the Government, claimed Aruna Roshantha, President of the All Ceylon Fisheries Trade Union. “The first round of compensation created friction among the fishermen due to the lack of transparency on the compensation scheme. They have collected signatures from fishermen for the second round but no payments have been made so far,” he said.
A senior Fisheries Ministry official however, said funds to pay out compensation have been disbursed to the three District Secretaries of Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara districts. A total of Rs. 720 million was received for the fisheries sector for the first round of compensation while about Rs. 300 million have been received for the second round of compensation. Fishermen in some areas have already received compensation during the second round, the source claimed.
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