Tehran, February 08:An Iranian official says it would take at least two months to clean up the oil spill that extends the northern coastal part of the Persian Gulf.
The oil slick began to spread after the Aghajari-Gureh pipeline in Daylam in Bushehr began leaking due to decay, ISNA reported on Monday.
The spill was stopped by changing the route of the pipeline one day after the incident, but it entered the Persian Gulf as a result of the flooding on Wednesday and polluted about 25 kilometers of the shore in Daylam.
“If weather conditions stay good, it will take at least two months to clean up the contaminated regions,” Dr. Mohammad Baqer Nabavi, an official with Iran’s Environment Protection Organization (IEPO), said on Monday.
“The Oil Company officials have started the clean-up operation,” the IEPO official noted. “The environmental damage is under investigation and it will be announced soon.”
Head of the Bushehr crisis management center Gholam-Reza Keshtkar said that an environmental disaster happened along the Daylam coastline.
“The incident has contaminated 300 hectares of agricultural fields and over 100 hectares of the Daylam shoreline,” Keshtkar said.
“The clean-up operation is hard and time consuming and I think it would be good if we could do it (clean the spill) in three months,” he added.
–Agencies