By Christine Fabro
The cleanup percentage along the shoreline of oil spill-affected Pola, Oriental Mindoro reached 85.41%, according to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Thursday, May 4.
It added that responders have reached a 74.82% cleanup rate in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro where motor tanker Princess Empress sank in February, causing a massive oil spill in the nearby areas.
This covered 29.13 kilometers of total length cleaned from 11 oil spill-impacted barangays in Pola and 5.3 kilometers from two areas in Naujan.
PCG also reported that barangays in Misong, Tiguihan, Zone 1 and Zone 2 in Pole remain to be “100% acceptably clean.”
“IMT (Incident Management Team) Oriental Mindoro Incident Commander, CG Commodore Geronimo Tuvilla, extends his heartfelt appreciation to the joint workforce for their diligent efforts in mitigating the impact in the maritime environment and for their service to the country,” PCG stated.
As of Thursday, the PCG recorded 6,070 sacks of oil-contaminated debris collected by the joint clean-up team in Oriental Mindoro since March 1.
Tuvilla assured that the PCG’s marine environmental frontliners will “remain steadfast in its shoreline cleanup, resurvey, and continuous monitoring for possible new sightings of oil while awaiting and after the actual siphoning operations.” -ag
