Essay On Oil Spills

Oil spill in the form of operational discharges of tank washings, accidental spills, illegal discharges as well as offshore and onshore oil well blowouts are contribute to water pollution. It was estimated 3.6 million tons of oil spills into the sea annually ( Jaswar, Rashini& Maimun, nd.). There were several major oil spill incidents involving oil tankers in the Strait of Malacca from 1976 to 1999. Examples of such spills are Diego Silang (1976), Asian (1977), M. T. Ocean Treasure (1981), Mv. Pantas (1986), Nagasaki Spirit (1992), An Tai (1997), and Sun Vista (1999).

There is several reasons lead to the Straits highly vulnerable to oil spills. First reason is Straits of Malacca is a major international tanker route transport crude oil from Middle East to Northeast Asian. The second factor is Peninsular Malaysia was discovered as a major oil field to product and export crude oil to other countries. Moreover, Malaysia is undergoing urbanization and industrialization which petroleum is the most significant sources for the process.

The impact of oil spills on coastal and marine environments can be both immediate and long term. Oil spill has negative impact on marine life for example seabirds and whales. It is also impact on their habitat such as wetlands and marshes. The oil spill issue can have serious consequences not only on the marine life in the Straits but also affect the economic activities such as tourism, commercial fishing and aquaculture. For instance, a collision between an oil tanker and an LPG carrier one mile from Sentosa Island, a popular tourist resort, resulted in a financial loss estimated at million dollars for the hotel business in 1993 (Jaswar & Rashidi & Maimun, nd.).

The objective of this paper is to determin...

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Data Analysis The result showed that the concentration of total PAHs ranged from 100.3 to 3446.9 µg/kg dw, with an average concentration of 994.02±918.1 µg/kg dw in Klang Straits (Table 2). The PAH contamination was estimated for surface sediments all over the strait, with higher concentrations observed at the stations close to the berth line (except station 12), especially in front of the container terminal in the West Port (station 13: 3446.9 µg/kg dw), in front of the dry and liquid terminal in the North Port (station 1: 1280.4 µg/kg dw and station 4: 2851.2 µg/kg dw), and in stations located adjacent to the mouth of the Klang River in the South Port (16: 2397.1 µg/kg dw and 17: 2902.1 µg/kg dw). PAH concentrations were generally lower in more remote stations and mangrove side, except for station 12, which had an elevated concentration of PAHs (1448.8 µg/kg dw)