Oil Pollution

Can oil be polluted? Are you thinking about this? Oil can be contaminated or adulterated but can’t be polluted. Any kind of liquid may not have as harmful effects as that of oil and the most harmful is its ability to put on fire. Then what is oil pollution. It is actually a wrong wording generally used for oil spills which means unwanted flow of oil into the water or land. But generally it is called oil pollution so for the convenience of the readers better to use the same term.

Oil pollution means spilling of the liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment more particularly into the marine environment. Oil in huge quantity is mostly transported trans-border through sea routes while its transportation within a country is done through a land route. Therefore, most of the oil pollution is occurred in sea water. Large vessels transport oil in big quantity from country to country and sometimes tanks lying over them leak and release a large quantity of oil directly into the sea. The leakages in fuel tanks of ship also cause oil pollution.

Other causes of oil pollution are rare. Like if a refinery is situated near the coastal area and releases the unwanted and bad quality oil directly into the sea causing oil pollution. It may happen in countries where there are no stringent laws to control flow of industrial effluents directly into the sea and other water bodies. Similarly boats which run on petrol or diesel mostly of fishermen folk also release the oil or diesel into the sea because of seepages into their fuel tank while moving on water.

Oil pollution is one of the most harmful forms of pollution. Moreover, its harmful effects cannot be removed immediately and most of them fade down with the passage of time. In some cases damages of a huge oil spill are neutralized in decades.

A huge quantity of oil spilled in 2007 by a ship Exxon Valdez in Alaska where scientists found that its nearly 26,000 gallons of spilled oil still persists in the sand along with Alaska shoreline and they believe that it would deplete at the rate of 4 per cent per year.

Oil pollution damages environment

Oil pollution directly impacts the environment by marring the entire ecosystem where it spilled and affects the fertility of the land, chemical composition of the water and rendered every natural resource not usable and deprives most of them their natural features leaving them as scrap.

Oil pollution hits plants

Oil if spills in big quantity along with a coastal area it entirely wipes out the plants, flora, fauna and forests along the coast. It badly damages the mangrove forests which are an important source of power for a marine environment. It also entirely changes the natural characteristics of marshy lands and harms the silt under sea water.

Oil pollution kills birds

The birds which rely on smelling to identify things specially their babies are worst hit of oil pollution. Large number of birds dies owing to persistency of oil pollution. The oil spilled by the ship Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 2007 killed thousands of sea birds.

Moreover, sea birds dip their peaks into the water and dive into it as a routine and because of presence of oil in water they come in directly contact of oil which eventually takes their lives.

Oil pollution slays fish

The main component of marine life is fishes. Spilled oil directly entered into their blow hole and killed them in few hours. Thousands of thousands fishes were killed in 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil spill. Also oil pollution negatively impacts the surviving fish ultimately we take contaminated fish, prawns and fish due to this form of pollution.

Oil pollution takes lives of marine mammals

Oil pollution also kills marine mammals because marine mammals have to stay in a specific place in the marine water due to feeding their babies. When their babies drink milk of their mothers they also take little amount of oil into their body and these little mammals die in their early ages. Similarly oil pollution also stick with the furs of mammals and takes the lives of most of them.

How to control oil pollution

There is no quick recipe to control the oil pollution. Its impact can be diluted by chemical dispersion, combustion, mechanical containment and absorption. But all these methods take weeks, months and even years to bring the results.