Bombay High spillage responsible for Goa's tar ball menace

Spillage of oil at the mid-sea oil field at Bombay High is responsible for carcinogenic tar balls which wash ashore on Goa's beaches during and after the monsoons, claimed Goa's Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the state cabinet, Cabral also said that the Goa government had written to the Union Ministry for Environment and Forests with findings of a study conducted by his Ministry, which points the finger for the tar ball menace towards Bombay High.

"We have tracked down on the source of these tar balls after studying the phenomenon. We have written to the MoEF about the matter. The central Ministry will now study our findings before taking measures to address the issue which we have raised," Cabral said.

Tar balls are formed due to a reaction of oil spills or from oily ballast dumped by sea going-vessels, which then reacts with the saline water, creating the formation of tar balls, which then wash ashore.

Tar balls regularly wash ashore along the Western coastline causing pollution of beaches and the coastal environment.

A decade back, studies conducted by the National Institute of Oceanography had identified dumping of heavy oil and ballast by ships off Goa, as the key reason for the formation of tar balls off the coast of Goa and North Karnataka.

Goa’s most popular beaches like Anjuna, Vagator, Calangute, Candolim, Benaulim suffer from the tar-ball menace, along with beaches in North Karnataka like Panambur, Sasihitlu, Mukka, etc.