Oil derivatives choking Gulf’s marine life

The average Gulf resident produces eight times more environmentally hazardous waste than the average American, a Gulf researcher has found.
An estimated 1.2 million barrels of liquid waste from oil derivatives are poured into the sea yearly, said Abdulnabi Al-Ghadban, a researcher at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR).
“Gulf waters are being continuously polluted with manufacturing and oil production waste, which have reached dangerously high levels,” he said.
“There are several fixed water exits from petrochemical factories, as well as oil leakages, in the Gulf,” he said. “Waters also contain insecticides and untreated radioactive material from military ships and nuclear submarines.
Desalination plants and cement, textile and food factories also contribute to the accelerated increase in water pollution.”
“Sewage, whether fully treated or only 20 to 30-percent treated, has a major role to play in contaminating regional waters,” said Al-Ghadban. “Wind deposits account for a whopping 30 percent of unwanted material showing up in these waters.”
The area has been through various military operations that have left substantial effects on the marine environment, he said. “The bombing of a plant in Iranian regional waters in 1979 saw more than 2 million barrels spilled into the sea. The war to free Kuwait in 1991 produced more than 12 million barrels, while the war on Iraq in 2003 led to several oil leakages and the destruction of military ships in these waters.”
The Gulf area is one of the most congested areas in terms of marine transport, with more than 25,000 oil carriers loaded with 60 percent of oil exports passing through Hormuz, a strait between the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Gulf, he said.