Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
BREWING STORM HALTS CLEANUP OF OIL SPILL
Collection efforts stymied by weather conditions; marine life at risk
GRAND BAHAMA — Efforts to contain an oil spill caused by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas has been put on hold as a tropical storm brews nearby, compounding the issues and challenges facing the hurricane-ravaged islands.
The unrelenting Category 5 storm blew the tops off five oil storage tanks holding an estimated 1.8 million barrels on Grand Bahama, the northernmost island in the Bahamas — and just 64 miles east of Palm Beach County’s coastline.
The possibility of the spill affecting South Florida’s waters and beaches was slim to none, experts said, but marine life in the Bahamas could be endangered and some of the oil could drift farther north in Florida.
“There is almost no chance that it would reach South Florida,” said Claire Paris-Limouzy, professor of ocean sciences at the University of Miami and an expert on oil spills.
“But wherever it makes landfall it could bring some of this oil there,” she said. “If you look at the trajectory of this storm, it could be north of Fort Pierce or Cape Kennedy.”
The tropical depression likely to become Tropical Storm Humberto on Friday afternoon was creeping toward Grand Bahama Island.
It was expected to sweep across the region, and a warning that tropical storm conditions were likely within 36 hours had been issued by the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The Bahamian government was aware of the spill but was first focused on evacuating, sheltering and reuniting people.
An estimated 2,500 people remain unaccounted for, although the official death toll continued to stand at 50 nearly two weeks after Dorian slammed the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama.
“Hurricane Dorian has impacted many, many Bahamian families, but obviously protecting our environment is still an important issue,” Minister of the Environment Romauld Ferreira told The Nassau Guardian. “After lives have been settled and restored, we need the environment to be restored.”
Equinor, the Norwegian company that owns the oil storage and shipment terminal at South Riding Point on the eastern side of Grand Bahama, didn’t yet know how much oil might have spilled and said it was trying to determine whether the oil came from their damaged tanks.
Their contention was that no oil was leaking from the terminal, which sits right next to the coastline.
On Thursday, Equinor said a response team was assessing the damage and making a plan.
“Recovery is expected to be significantly stepped up over the coming days in close dialogue with local authorities,” the company said in a news release.
By Friday, the operation was on stand-down, a spokesman said.
“Based on the latest weather forecast projections for the developing tropical system, Equinor has implemented a pause in the recovery work until weather allows safe return to work,” Eskil Eriksen said via email.
The damaged tanks were designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, Eriksen said Friday evening.
“We don’t know why [the lids blew off ], but we will find out,” he said. “Our main priorities now are to help our employees on Bahamas, who have survived a very severe natural disaster, and to clean up the oil spill.”
Protocol at Port Everglades during a hurricane is to “keep 20 feet or 25% of petroleum products in the tank to help the tank withstand Cat 5 winds,” said Ellen Kennedy, spokeswoman for the port.
“However, the aluminum geo domes are built to come off,” she said, because it’s better to have the dome blow off and to the ground rather than into the tank.
Abby Renegar, a research scientist at Nova Southeastern University’s oceanographic center at Dania Beach, said it was her understanding that most of the oil that spilled in the Bahamas was blown out of the storage tanks after their lids were lost.
“So most of the spill was on land; not a lot of it made it actually into the water,” she said.
“The potential of it making it across the gulf stream and having any sort of impact on South Florida is very, very slim,” Renegar said.
At Equinor they store oil and condensate, according to their website. It is processed in the refinery and is mostly diesel and jet fuel.
That would make the spilled oil highly toxic and particularly dense and heavy, which means it wouldn’t float on the surface and it would be more prone to mixing and depositing rather than dispersing, experts said.
Grand Bahama most certainly would see a negative effect from the spill, ParisLimouzy said.
“I think the impact would be more localized, but I don’t know how much oil is there,” she said.
The approaching tropical depression’s winds would likely mix the oil into the shallow water below the surface, deposit it on the ocean floor, the banks, shores and coastlines. There also was a likelihood it could penetrate the water table, ParisLimouzy said.
Some of the oil would evaporate and some would likely get transported in the gulf stream and eventually diluted.
“Dorian was a tragic, huge event in the Bahamas,” now compounded by the spill and the approach of another storm, Renegar said.
The approaching storm was sure to complicate cleanup efforts.
“You can collect the oil if the weather is calm,” Paris-Limouzy said. “But when the weather is stormy like this, the oil will be mixed, making it more difficult to collect.”
The nearby coral reefs would be vulnerable. So would sea turtles and marine mammals, like dolphins and manatees. Fish could be at risk; birds not so much, Renegar said.
If the oil ended up in the sand, it would affect anything whose habitat is the beach, she said.
“From what I’ve seen of the spill itself, there wasn’t a lot of oil that actually ended up on the ocean,” Renegar said.
The effects might not be particularly widespread, but the cleanup effort would be massive, said Renegar, whose specialty is marine toxicology at Nova’s Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography.
Oil from the damaged tanks had already been moved to different tanks and an oil boom was positioned to close the harbor at the terminal to reduce the risk of an oil spill to sea, according to an Equinor news release issued Wednesday.
Equinor said it had two vessels bringing 42 people and onshore oil-spill recovery equipment to the site.
The first one arrived Tuesday. The second one was supposed to arrive Thursday, a news release said.
The equipment they were bringing included containment booms, hundreds of bails of absorbent pads, skimmers, wash pumps, smaller boats and protection equipment, according to Equinor.
The company also acknowledged another spot of oil on the water at Long Point Bight, close to Little Abaco Island, which is about 50 miles northeast of the South Riding Point spill.
The source of that oil was still being investigated, an Equinor news release said.
“You can collect the oil if the weather is calm. But when the weather is stormy like this, the oil will be mixed, making it more difficult to collect.”
Claire Paris-Limouzy, professor of ocean sciences at the University of Miami