Chek Jawa check up 19June2010

Is there still oil at Chek Jawa?

Whilst the rest of the Team Seagrass group busied themselves with the nitty gritty of seagrassing, I took the oppurtunity to visit the impacted stretches of beach and mangroves on Chek Jawa’s Northern face fronting the Northern sandbar and seagrass lagoon.

The beach segments did not smell of oil and they were generally clear of oil residue except in small pockets.

One of the most impacted clumps of mangrove was now clear of any signs of crude oil.

This was how another corner of the same mangrove tree looked like on Day 2 of the spill :


There was still some residue on leaves, stems, branches and driftwood....especially in the mangrove section near the boardwalk.

I am surprised that the leaves were still green knowing that this same crude oil was able to dissolve plastic bags such that the bags became soft enough to tear at the slightest pull. Somehow, the leaves were able to resist the corrosive effects of the crude oil.

Part of a mangrove tree root with a layer of crude oil on it

Here is a short clip on oiled leaves spotted :


Crude oil splotches on a piece of decomposing driftwood :

There were no signs of any large numbers of dead animals such as fish or crabs....perhaps the wildboar which frequent the shores ate them up if there were any.....but there were also no signs of any dead wildboar too!...but there were lots of footprints of live ones!

The SandBubbler and Fiddler crabs seemed OK. 

The grey areas on the sand is a layer of residual crude oil. This had the characteristic crude oil smell when the finger-to-nose test was done. Note the tiny sand bubbler burrows and balls of sand near the grey areas.:

The SandBubblers did not seem affected by the oil.(?!) even though the sand bubblers lick the sand for biological material to get their food.

Some of the mangrove trees were flowering and the propagules looked normal (no pinkish tinge commonly associated with pollution). 

There was still quite a bit of trash coated with crude oil and these were slimy to the touch. Some crude oil soaked plastic bags were wrapped around the mangrove roots.

The pic shows some residual crude mixed in the sand...




There is still some cleanup work needed at Chek Jawa. The oil that is still coating the mangrove sections may never be totally removed as most the mangrove roots are difficult to access. Perhaps the continual washing action of the waves is able to get rid of all the crude.

Read about Ria’s check up here: