Complete oil spill clean-up at Singapore’s Sentosa beaches to take three months

SINGAPORE (Bernama–Agencies): It will take three months to complete the oil spill clean-up in the Tanjong and Palawan beaches at Singapore’s resort Sentosa, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, Grace Fu has announced.

The spill happened on June 14 after a collision between a Netherlands-flagged dredger and a Singapore-flagged bunker vessel. The oil spread to Singapore’s southern coast areas, including Sentosa, over the next few days.

Public and private organisations have deployed over 700 personnel for the clean-up operation, said the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, adding that they have collected 550 tonnes of oil-soaked sand and debris from the affected beaches.

The clean-up response in the next phase would focus on removing oil remnants trapped in some areas that are not easily accessible, such as breakwaters and rock bunds, Fu said.

Fu added that clean-up efforts will now be entering the next phase.

“The first phase of the clean-up focused on removing the oil slicks and contaminated sand from the surface of the affected beaches and deploying booms to avoid further contamination,” she said.

“This is making good progress and approaching completion.”

Bags of contaminated sand are collected next to a beach club during the cleanup of an oil slick at Tanjong Beach in Sentosa, Singapore June 18, 2024. – Reuters

In a joint statement on Monday by seven agencies involved in the oil clean-up effort – such as the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) – they said that based on satellite and drone images, no oil slick along East Coast and Changi has been observed since Jun 18.

“The bulk of oil-soaked sand has been removed from most of the affected public beaches, with the exception of Tanjong and Palawan beach at Sentosa,” said the agencies.

Fu said the next phase will be “more complex in nature” and focus on difficult-to-clean areas like rock bunds, breakwaters, and oil trapped deeper in the sand.

This is not straightforward as such places are not as accessible as beach shorelines and their surfaces are uneven.

“Oil that has slipped into the boulder crevices needs to be thoroughly flushed out … We want to minimise the oil flushed out from contaminating other areas,” said Ms Fu.

“We are also mindful of keeping our workers safe as they operate over rocky terrain which can be uneven, hard to reach as they are sea-facing, and very slippery.”

She added that agencies will test out various cleaning methods to find the most suitable one for respective sites and refine their operations as they go along.

Clean-up operations commenced on the rock bunds at Siloso Beach on Jun 21. In the coming weeks, similar operations will be carried out at Sentosa Cove, Labrador Nature Reserve, and East Coast Park.

“We expect to take around three months to complete this next phase of cleaning, after which we will progressively reopen affected public areas,” said the minister.

“For less affected areas, we hope to open earlier.”

Sea activities will only resume when the water quality is assessed to be safe for primary contact activities. – Bernama-Agencies