The amount of bunker fuel coming from the site where the M/T Solar 1 is believed to have sank in the Guimaras Strait had slowed down and the oil sheen running between Negros and Iloilo had disappeared yesterday afternoon, Commander Harold Jarder, Iloilo Coast Guard chief, said.

Jarder, who had conducted an aerial survey, said oil was coming from the sink site yesterday afternoon at about 50 to 100 liters an hour, from 200 to 250 liters an hour in previous days.

However, Jarder stressed that local governments and communities in Iloilo and Negros should not let their guard down. They should continue preparing makeshift spill booms to prevent the oil spill from entering their shores, he said. Guimaras Governor JC Rahman Nava yesterday said if Petron fails to remove the oil from the clean-up in his province in five days the provincial government will file charges against the oil firm.

"I would like to assure the people of Guimaras that we will be there and do whatever it takes to clean up and rehabilitate the strait and Island of Guimaras," Petron Corp. chairman Nick Alcantara said in a statement yesterday.

"We at Petron deeply regret this unfortunate incident and will take responsibility in addressing the containment and recovery of the oil spill both on land and sea, and more importantly, map out

long-term rehabilitation of the Island of Guimaras," he said.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Petron earlier said it had no legal or contractual obligation for the oil spill or the clean-up.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is expected to inspect the oil spill in Guimaras Saturday.

DONATE FEATHERS

Jarder yesterday called on the public to donate indigenous absorbent materials like human hair, chicken feathers and rice straw to be used to ward off the oil spill. Donations can be brought to Coast Guard offices, he said.

San Miguel Corp. has committed one ton of chicken feathers a day from its plants in Iloilo and Bacolod, Jarder said.

The M/T Solar 1 carrying 2 million liters of Petron bunker fuel sank in the Guimaras Strait amid foul weather on Aug. 11.

OIL SHEEN GONE

Jarder said that the oil sheen seen running between Negros and Iloilo was gone and attributed this to the fact than when the aerial survey was conducted it was low tide making the spill float in the opposite direction.

He said oil from the suspected spill site was about 7 miles long and in some sections 100 meters wide.

For now there is no new oil sheen headed towards Negros and Iloilo, he said. However, he also said, some of the oil spill had already hit land in Ajuy and Concepcion in Iloilo earlier.

For now, Negros Occidental is safe but there is no telling where the oil will go when the tide turns, Jarder said.

Meanwhile, Gov. Joseph Marañon yesterday said the province's Task Force Oil Spill was busy preparing its defenses against the oil spill.

The shores of Negros Occidental can be defended, unlike in Guimaras where it was immediately hit by the oil slick, the governor said.

Silay Mayor Carlo Gamban yesterday was named the initial head of the Third District Task Force Oil Spill Council with EB Magalona Mayor Alfonso Gamboa as his co-chairman. Gamban said that their group will joined by Bacolod City.

Gamban said at their meeting yesterday they discussed steps to prevent the entry of oil spill into the third district shores in coordination with the provincial government, Petron and the Coast Guard.

KEEP PROMISE

Meanwhile, Jarder said Petron should keep its promise to bring in a Japanese vessel Saturday to determine how to retrieve the bunker fuel still at the bottom of Guimaras Strait that remains a ticking environmental time bomb.

If the containers of the remaining sunken bunker fuel explodes before their contents are sucked out or removed, we will be in for an even bigger disaster, he stressed.

So far what we have gotten from Petron, is all talk, Jarder said. Greenpeace investigation showed that no agreement has been reached with Fukada Salvage and Marine Works for the sending of a vessel to the Philippines yet, Von Hernandez, Greenpeace Campaign Director for Southeast Asia, claimed yesterday.

There is no truth to the statement of Petron that the ship is headed for the Philippines already, he claimed.

"Petron is playing smokes and mirrors, saying the solution is already underway when, in fact, no agreement with the company has been reached yet. This is all about money, the reason they are not moving fast enough is because of the money issue," Hernandez said.

Meanwhile, lives continue to hang in the balance, he said.

He also said Petron officials cannot say they are not responsible for the sinking because "they hired a vessel that in other countries would not be used for oil transport."

"Chartering an aging 56 year old vessel to transport its oil is really courting disaster. It is absolutely criminal that this was allowed to happen. That ship should have been consigned to a museum instead of allowing it to continue to transport dangerous cargo," he said.*CPG

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ILOILO CITY - A Japanese vessel with state-of the-art sonar equipment is arriving here over the weekend to help locate the sunken MT Solar I, a spokesman of Petron Corp. reiterated yesterday.

Carlos Tan, Petron's health safety and environment officer, said the remote-operated vehicle (ROV) of Fukada Salvage and Marine Works will help identify the exact location of the sunken vessel somewhere in the Panay Gulf southwest of Guimaras Island.

The vessel, equipped with powerful underwater cameras, advance sonar system and capable of diving to 2,000 meters underwater, will also help the Coast Guard determine the exact position of the vessel after it sank on August 11.

Once the tanker has been located, Tan said, the data gathered by the ROV will help in the evaluation of the risks involved and determine the courses of action in containing the leakage of bunker fuel. These include the removal of the remaining oil or the floating of the tanker.

Two vessels of the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority using sonar have failed to locate the tanker.

Tan said they could not set a timetable when the sonar sweep would be completed and the possible floating of the vessel or removal of the remaining bunker fuel will start because the depth of the area where the vessel was believed to have sunk varies from 500 to 1,000 meters.

Clean-up teams in the shoreline have collected more than 95 metric tons of debris and cleaned 28 km of shoreline, said Tan.

The workers are residents of affected villages hired by Petron for P200 daily.

But the Petron and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources have not identified a temporary and final dumpsite for the collected debris.

Tan said they need at least a one-hectare area for a dumpsite.

But Guimaras JC Rahman Nava has refused to allow the dumping of the debris on in Guimaras. "We have enough oil on our island already," Nava said.

DENR regional executive director Julian Amador said they have instructed Petron to ensure that the collected debris is treated and its temporary dump site enclosed in plastic liners until a permanent dumpsite is identified.*NPB

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