Oil spill from Uran plant caused no damage to farmers, fishermen, says ONGC

livemint.com:

New Delhi: State-run ONGC on Sunday said that the recent oil spill from a crude oil storage tank at its plant in Uran, a coastal town in Maharashtra, has not caused any damage to farmers and fishermen and has described the incident as a "minor" oil spill. The statement comes after the oil spilled into a stormwater drainage channel.

"There is no damage to either farmers or fishermen due to the minor oil spill near Uran beach recently," said the ONGC statement The statement noted that on Friday morning, a "minor" quantity of oil leaked from one of the crude oil storage tanks at the ONGC Uran plant and due to heavy rains, the leaked oil entered the stormwater drain channel. "As the quantity of oil leakage from the plant area was minimal, the leaked oil got trapped between rocks on the beach with only traces reaching the shoreline," it said.

ONGC said that the Oil Spill Response (OSR) team from ONGC was immediately deployed to avoid ingress of oil into the sea and cleaning of the shoreline commenced on war footing. Noting that due to heavy rains on the day of the incident and the beach being a rocky area, the cleaning took a lot of effort, the company said that due to the ONGC team's timely and tireless efforts, the oil did not enter the sea and no damage to marine life is anticipated.

The company further said that local villagers had taken an "unauthorized water connection" to their fields by breaching the stormwater drain channel wall from the plant for irrigation purposes, due to which a small quantity of oil entered only four-five paddy fields. "The damage to paddy fields is also very limited.