Maritime authorities denied that a massive oil spill in the gulf was to blame for the deaths of a dead dolphin and turtle discovered there over the weekend.
Sophon Thongdee, director of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, said yesterday that autopsy results concluded the animals died before 160,000 liters were pumped into the water Tuesday by a broken pipeline off the coast of eastern Rayong province.
He said the examination found the dolphin had been dead for seven to 10 days, according to the autopsy, without any oil traces found. He said its cause of death could not be determined due to the “very rotten condition” of the carcass.
The 9 biggest oil spills in Thai history
As for the sea turtle found near the Rayong shoreline, forensic findings indicated it had been dead at least five to seven days and likely suffered from a chronic illness.
The animals’ deaths further aggravated anger over the rupture about 20 kilometers offshore of the pipeline owned by Star Petroleum Refining, which Greenpeace noted was not its first.
“In 1997, an oil spill occurred during the unloading of oil from its Once ship to the company’s crude oil station, causing more than 160,000 liters of crude oil to spill into the sea,” Greenpeace Thailand wrote in a statement calling for the company to be held accountable for another spill of the same magnitude.
Gulf oil is big business, and officials have offered similar denials when it comes to large economic interests, such as the recently abandoned pretense that swine flu was not spreading through the kingdom’s pig farms.
Navy officials and pollution experts have been trying to clean up the spill that closed one of Rayong’s most popular attractions, Mae Ramphueng Beach. It was declared a disaster area Saturday by provincial Gov. Channa Iamsaeng.
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