Message from the Ministry of Environment:
This is a call to all Volunteers who have registered their interest in volunteering and assisting the Ministry of Environment in the Oil Spill Cleanup operations.
This is a first mobilization step. More calls will be sent out when more sites are opened.
The cleanup operation at RAMLET AL BAYDA needs the following:
Volunteers:
- 30 people in the morning shift from 8am to 2pm
- 30 people in the afternoon shift
- Volunteers to litter pick to facilitate the process
- Some Volunteers (depending on numbers) might be asked to assist onsite in Fisherman’s wharf.
If you are interested and able to volunteer, please contact Colonel Michel Hashem of the Lebanese Naval Army who is working closely with the Ministry of Environment and who is coordinating the work onsite. He can be reached on: 01 / 983 468 – 03 / 303 832.
All volunteers will be briefed on the right procedures by the Naval Army and French experts' onsite tomorrow morning.
Please note that if you cannot make this operation, more will follow and you will be notified accordingly.
AND last but not least, please remember its still summer – wear caps and don’t forget to put on sunscreen / sun block
17th, 18th August, 2006
During the Israeli war on Lebanon and a week after the aid raid on the Jiyyel power plant, the oil spill team started an assessment of the affected areas north of Beirut. It was discovered that the damage was far reaching and severely affected marine ecology and people’s livelihoods.
It was obvious that removing the oil from the water, sand and rocks is a priority regardless of the circumstances and that delay only meant that the oil will settle deeper into the sea bed, rocks, sand and maritime species which causes greater damage and makes it harder and more expensive to cleanup.
After three weeks of assessment, planning and delays we could not wait any longer, cease fire had not yet been achieved but the oil spill team decided to start cleanup!
Our team and cleanup coordinator set their plan, all we needed was cleanup material which included basic manual equipment, personal protective equipment and special absorbent booms (3m long special absorbent materials) which the ministry of environment agreed to provide to us. We contacted experts to assist with the booms and cleanup technique, arranged for transport and storage space of the polluted sand and planned for a follow-up with the ministry for proper treatment at a later stage.
Thursday morning 9am
30 volunteers gathered in Ramlet el Baida and emptied the cleaning materials and protective equipments and got ready for cleanup. They wore their protective overalls and rubber boots; put their gloves, goggles and face masks on and dug out oily sand with shovels and collected them in piles for a bulldozer to pickup later. Another team setup the absorbent booms along the shoreline to absorb the oil brought in with the waves.
We removed oily sand from a small spot on Ramlet el Baida but were then informed that we were not allowed to bring the bulldozer in; this meant we had to leave the sand on site and risk it being spread onto the beach again or it being washed out into the sea far from our reach.
Friday morning 9am
The team decided to resume cleanup, we were still unsure whether we will be allowed to move the oily sand from the beach. The bulldozer was parked at the southern entrance of the beach with the driver awaiting our signal of when he can start taking the polluted sand out. In the meantime we decided to remove the oily garbage that was thrown onshore.
The reason we had to leave the polluted sand on site was because the ministry of environment did not approve that we move it to a private storage space. We had been in contact with the ministry about our intention for cleanup weeks ahead and they had known our plan verbally and in writing. They had assisted us by providing absorbent booms and when they could not provide storage space for us to place the sand we provided a space and informed them. The fact that they stated this on cleanup day reduced the effectiveness of our work and the team’s effort, what’s a cleanup when you keep the contamination on site?
Nevertheless, the oil spill cleanup team made a great accomplished. We proved cleanup can start and should, many areas can be cleaned using very basic equipment and there is no reason for delay. That day we started cleanup on the public beach in Beirut, and a day later we heard that an environmental NGO and a hundred volunteers went to cleanup their beach in Byblos, unfortunately they were also prevented from moving the polluted sand from the beach.
No single group can clean the whole coast on its own and our priority should be immediate cleanup, a national clean up plan should have been out when cease fire was announced and even then we were already very late.
The main victims of this unjustified delay are our country, marine life, people living off the coast and waters of Lebanon, and our future generations who will never know our coastline as we knew it before the spill.
