sgbeachbum: Revisiting an Oil Spill impact zone

Headed down to the lost coast at Tanah Merah East this morning for a morning hike.

There was obvious brown oily residue coating various parts of the shore including the riverbed, the large middle tidal pool and the smaller far tidal pool (near the Changi Aerospace Exhibition plot). However, these were from the earlier oil spill in Singapore waters and not the one a few days ago in Johor. There were no signs of any new oil.

It looks like various swathes of oil have been slowly released into the surrounding environment getting washed continually by wave action and mixing with other surface material to form a brown chocolatey scum.

No one seems to have done any cleanup in this area except for the rocky seawall near the Changi Aerospace Exhibition Plot.

It was a shock to see the far tidal pool about to be covered up by huge piles of 'new' sand. The narrow channel previously seen, which had linked the tidal pool to the sea, had been covered up by a thick barrier of sand.

However, it looked like the power of the waves had been underestimated as they seemed to have washed away a large amount of the new sand. It could be a matter of time before the monsoon season waves wreck their will and have their way on the wall of sand.

In the meantime, what was left of the mangrove seedling patch was in a much worse set of circumstances as the tidal pool seemed to be slowly
drying up after having been cut off from the beach. As was seen shortly after the oil spill impacted this section of coast, all the mangrove seedlings were leafless or dead. There were still some tiny fish and also a few small (fat-arm) jellyfish doing their best to survive in the ever more salty and warm water remaining in the pool.

All the greenery which had previously surrounded the tidal pool had been covered up with sand and presumably also all the rubbish which had previously floated in and got caught in the vegetation. There had been copious amounts of trash around the tidal pool ...all of which probably floated in with the highest of tides through the narrow channel.

On a hike earlier this year, Ria Tan had found a very rare mangrove plant called the Pemphis acidula or Mentigi. I wasn't sure where the plant was situated but it was likely in the area or very close to where the new sand was being deposited. Looks like this rare plant may disappear from Singapore yet again. I hope NParks had been able to take a cutting and seeds from it.

See the following links for more infomation about the Mentigi:-
http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/01/long-march-to-pemphis.html
http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/01/rare-mangrove-tree-mentigi-pemphis.html
http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/plants/mangrove/pemphis/acidula.htm

The earlier efforts at treating the oil covered rocks seemed to have worked as there was hardly any oil residue to be seen on the rocks. However, in between the rocks was a totally different matter. The sand between the rocks was like chocolate cake having absorbed the crude oil.

After so many months since 25May2010, the oil residue still persists.

I remember there was a large area of chocolate sand leading into the tidal pool. This had now disappeared due to the new sand piled on top of it. It looks like the entire tidal pool will be covered up to put the oil residue further out of sight. Piling sand on top seems to be the easiest way of dealing with an environmental eyesore.