PCG Commandant Admiral Artemio Abu (left) and USCG Pacific Strike Team commanding officer Stacey Crecy at the PCG National Headquarters in Manila on Monday (March 20, 2023). (Photo courtesy of US Embassy in Manila)
MANILA – The United States government has dispatched eight experts to Oriental Mindoro province to support the Philippines in its oil spill response efforts, the US Embassy in Manila said Tuesday.
The team arrived in Pola town, Oriental Mindoro on March 21, a day after a briefing with the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the Japan Disaster Relief Expert Team about mitigation efforts taken so far since the tanker MT Princess Empress capsized and spilled about 800,000 liters of industrial fuel oil off Naujan town last month.
“When vessels are in deep water, as in this case, cleaning up the remaining oil becomes a complicated issue. Through our incident management professionals’ wealth of experience and strong expertise in oil spill response, we will assist the PCG in developing safe and efficient methods to contain and recover the oil and minimize damage to the environment,” said Commander Stacey Crecy, commanding officer of the US Coast Guard’s (USCG) Pacific Strike Team. "The USCG remains deeply committed to our relationship with the PCG."
The US Embassy said the assistance is upon the request of the Philippine government.
Five of the experts are from the US Coast Guard National Strike Force and will assess the affected areas to determine the most effective method and equipment to contain and clean up the slick from the sunken vessel.
Two are from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who will work closely with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to conduct rapid environmental assessments of affected areas, identify priority areas at risk of environmental damage, and assess needs for ecosystem restoration.
NOAA, on the other hand, has provided the PCG with satellite imagery to boost assessment efforts and the University of the Philippines-Marine Sciences Institute with support for scientific modeling to estimate the trajectory of the spill.
The last member is a Navy Supervisor of Salvage and Diving who will evaluate the technical parameters required to support the possible deployment of a remotely operated vehicle.
Earlier this month, the US Agency for International Development partnered with the World Food Program to help the Department of Social Welfare and Development transport 20,000 food packs for families affected by the oil spill.
Meanwhile, 80 pieces of coco coir logs were transported Monday afternoon from Batangas province to Mindoro to help contain the oil spill.
Fr. Edwin Gariguez, director of the Diocesan Action Center of Calapan, said in a social media post that 20 coco coir logs were sent to Verde Island Passage, another 20 to Lobo town, Batangas and the remaining 40 are for this city.
The use and deployment of the materials are facilitated by the Center for Energy, Ecology and Development in coordination with the Diocesan Social Action Center of Oriental Mindoro, the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office of Oriental Mindoro and the city government of Calapan.
Coco coir logs are made of interwoven coconut fibers that are bound together with biodegradable netting.
“According to a scientific journal, the coir fiber absorbs a fair amount of crude oil and studies also indicate that a simple squeezing was sufficient to remove most of the oil absorbed by the fibers so that the sorbents can be reused several times for oil spill clean-up,” Gariguez noted in his post. (With report from Maria Tividad/PNA)
