Update on fire at Shell's Bukom refinery

It appears there WAS a fire at the Shell Bukom refinery on 26 Mar which forced the plant to be shut down for a few hours, and one of three Crude Distillation Units (CDUs) to be down a day after. Shell says "the flame and smoke that you see are from the refinery’s flare system".

Photo by Straits Times, Lau Fook Kong.

But according to Reuters: "A momentary trip in electricity supply to the plant, called a power dip, triggered a fire in one of the smaller secondary cracking units, part of its 33,000-bpd Long Residue Catalytic Cracker (LRCC) complex."

Lots of dead fishes along Sungei Tampines

There are indeed lots of dead fishes along the banks of Sungei Tampines.

Media articles reported thousands of 5cm long dead fishes washed up along Sungei Tampines on 29 Mar, from Pasir Ris Drive 3 to the river mouth. I had a quick look this afternoon.

When lizards hug, what does it mean?

These monitor lizards are NOT mating!

Although they appear to be hugging each other lovingly, the truth is far from it!

Sharing about our shores at Green Drinks

I had a great time sharing about our shores last night at Green Drinks!

Thanks to Olivia Choong for the opportunity to share with this fabulous crowd of socially conscious people.

MOS Tan Chuan-Jin dives reefs at Raffles Lighthouse

Thanks to NParks and the marine community, Minister Tan Chuan-Jin was introduced to some of Singapore's best reefs at Raffles Lighthouse!

Diving our wild reefs: MOS Tan Chuan-Jin (right most)
with NParks officers, photo by Neo Mei Lin.

I read all about it on Mei Lin's post on her Psychedelic Nature blog!

Another fire at Shell's Bukom refinery?

On 26 Mar 2012 "flames and smoke were seen coming out of a processing plant on Pulau Bukom" according to media articles.

Photo by Straits Times, Lau Fook Kong.

Reports said "the power trip had caused the plant's 'flare system' to go off" and when asked, Shell "declined to elaborate on the incident".

Fierce tiny fish at Tuas with TeamSeagrass

Back on the Tuas shore to with TeamSeagrass volunteers from Merck, led by Sheryl.

The seagrasses are doing fine and we also saw some interesting marine life even though the tide wasn't very low.

31 Mar (Sat): Mangrove Ecology Walk at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

What is a mangrove ecosystem? What interesting plants and animals can be found in this special habitat? Which are the ones we can eat? How can we conserve them better?

Join the Southeast Asian Biodiversity Society at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve to get these questions and many more answered!

Sunday with good net and bad net

A small team is back to remove more nets at the same spot on Pulau Ubin that we did in Dec 2011. Although it was good to see that there were no new nets in the area we cleared, there are still lots of nets just a few steps further down.

Andy, Marcus and Hussain working along
the same net entwined around mangrove roots.

Earlier in the day, I had a great time at the talk on using the internet for nature outreach.