Carcass of a sub-adult river Dolphin recovered from Maguri-Motapung Beel

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT

TINSUKIA: With the recovery of the carcass of a sub-adult river Dolphin on Friday morning from Maguri-Motapung Beel close to Baghjan Oilfield blowout, the safety of wildlife in Dibru-Saikhowa National Park along with Maguri-Motapung Beel has become a serious concern. While the blowout is still continuing in the same magnitude with no let-up even after 3 days, the safety measures supposed to be adopted by the drilling company was allegedly lacking.

The Blowout Preventer (BOP) is a highly specialized safety gadget which is used to prevent oil spill from occurring. Significantly it is one of the oil wells (BJN-5, PAD-1) from where the OIL has been contemplating on extracting hydrocarbon using Extended Reach Drilling (ERD) technology from Dibru-Saikhowa National Park.

As the condensate from the atmosphere settled over residential houses and agricultural fields spreading over several sq km area like Motapung, Nutangaon, Baghjan, the villagers are apprehensive that the fire may broke out anytime, said Nirantar Gohain, an environmental activist from Nutangaon.

Meanwhile, the Tinsukia Wildlife Division collected the carcass of the dolphin from the confluence of Dibru River and Maguri-Motapung Beel in the presence of WTI officials and sent it for forensic test to ascertain the cause of death. Though prima facie observation revealed oil spill to be the reason, the DFO Wildlife RS Bharti ruled out any poaching act and said the dolphin must have died at least 48 hours back as its skin has started peeling off.

Staff Correspondent from Dibrugarh adds: Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan taking stock of the Baghjan oilfield blowout in Assam had a detailed discussion with CMDs of OIL as well ONGCL on Friday. Expressing his concern over the incident, Pradhan advised OIL to take all necessary steps to ensure the health and safety of the local population. He instructed ONGCL to provide all possible support to OIL in this moment of crisis. In the meantime, Government of Assam is also keeping a keen watch over the developments and providing all possible help to OIL.