Update on litter and crude oil at Tanah Merah

Plastic accumulated on the high shore seems to have been removed!

But litter is still sprinkled everywhere, and crude oil still seen on the shore.

This is what we saw on this part of the shore in July 2011,

Without the distracting trash, I took a closer look at the large log left behind, and noticed that it was charred on top and the vegetation nearby also looks toasted. It's probably hard to burn wet wood, without pouring on some sort of accelerant. I shudder to think of someone trying to light a big fire on a shore still slicked with crude oil.

There are still signs of crude buried beneath the sand. In some parts of the shore, streams of water reveal the darker portion beneath the sand.

Some areas still had soft silty sand on top of what seems to be crude oil. A step into such a spot releases a rainbow bloom of sheen.

I kicked a little beneath the sand to reveal sparkling crude. Smells the same as the day it first landed more than a year ago.

There were some dark spots with whitish growths.

There seems to be some large trash on the low shore near the rocks where hard corals are growing.

Large trash bags envelope rocks and possibly also hard corals growing on them.

Plastic trash is still sprinkled everywhere on the shore. Compared to what we saw in July 2011, there seems to be less trash on the high shore.

Litter around a carpet anemone growing in a patch of seagrasses.

But there is still much life on the shore! More in this separate post.

More about the oil spill on this blog and on the Oil spill facebook page.