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Oil versus tourism:
At odds on the Red Sea
Heba El-Sherif
Home for pristine diving spots and almost 200 oil drilling platforms,
the Red Sea is a battlefield for two of Egypt’s pivotal sources of
income, tourism and petroleum. A month after dispatches of oil covered
Hurghada’s shoreline, authorities are still contesting the size of the
spill, the source that leaked the oil and the effect it had on the
environment. However, what scientists seem to agree on is the need to
strike a balance between conserving Egypt’s rich ecosystem and
extracting its energy reserves.
“Each governmental agency [sic] they have their own vision; oil
production would like to produce oil; tourism would like to use the area
for tourism; fisheries would like to fish. How? This is the main problem
we are facing in the Red Sea,” argued Mahmoud Hanafy, marine biology
professor at the Suez Canal University.
Hanafy said that the conflict arises because an “intensive” petroleum
industry exists within a sensitive habitat that is threatened by
drilling platforms and inevitable slicks.
“Non-living resources one day will be finished, but living
resources…will be forever. So on the long term, even from the economical
point of view, I think the opportunity…to conserve these resources is
very valuable, not only the local and the regional level, but for the
international level,” said Hanafy.
While oil seems to be the main polluter of the Suez Gulf, pollution
has also taken its toll on Egypt’s marine life over the past few years.
Magdi Nasrallah, professor and founding chair of petroleum and energy
engineering at the American University in Cairo, told Daily News Egypt
that as a concerned country, Egypt should closely monitor drilling
companies in an effort to predict and act to avoid future leaks.
“We cannot afford to pollute this area. We need to carefully control
[operating platforms] through continuous monitoring,” added Nasrallah,
suggesting that the government outline penalties and taxes for those who
breach regulations. Meanwhile, on the recent leak, Managing Director of
the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Agency (HEPCA)
Amr Ali said, “The long term effect on marine life is going to be
catastrophic.”
Fishermen first noticed dispatches of oil in the sea on June 18, but
the leak is believed to have started two days earlier, although no
authority was notified. The current caused the oil to wash up on the
beaches of Hurghada and El Gouna, covering an estimated 30 kilometers of
Egypt’s Red Sea shoreline and temporarily disrupting activity at
surrounding resorts. The exact size and source of last month’s spill
remain disputed, however. “I don’t think that the amount detected [last
month] constitutes a major spill,” said Nasrallah. Meanwhile, Ali
estimates that the oil leaked amounts to 8,000-10,000 barrels in total.
For its part, the Ministry of Petroleum issued a press release
stating that waste dumping and residual oil stains on rocks caused the
recent appearance of oil on the shoreline, a claim contested by
environmental activists.
Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmy also said that he was mulling a cut
down on the number of oil platforms in the Suez Gulf. “I have full
confidence in what comes out of the petroleum ministry,” said Nasrallah,
suggesting that it is possible the spill did not originate from an oil
platform.
He argued that because the Red Sea is an international pathway, “it
is expected that with heavy traffic you would have some spills.”
Meanwhile, an engineer at the Marine Center for Combating Pollution in
Hurghada, a body which operates under the Ministry of Petroleum, who
took part in last month’s clean-up efforts, said, “The spill could have
come from anything; it could be a boat and it could be a platform,”
maintaining that “we cannot speak about the spill.” He asked to remain
anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Environmental activists in Hurghada believe that the oil came from an
offshore drilling platform which HEPCA identified as belonging to
PetroGulf Misr, an allegation they supported with some video footage
that was posted on the HEPCA channel on YouTube. Daily News Egypt,
however, was unable confirm when this footage was taken.
Several attempts to acquire a statement from PetroGulf Misr failed as
the company refused to comment on the alleged incident. Conservationists
admitted that the government acted quickly to clean-up the shores,
however, some questioned the government’s claim to have plugged the
spill without identifying its source, triggering speculation about its
transparency and ability to deal with possible bigger spills in the
future.
Courtesy: Daily News Egypt
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