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Israeli, Jordanian drill tackles Red Sea oil spill

29 October 2010 04:48 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Israel and Jordan, which share port cities along the northern end of the narrow 180-km-long Gulf of Eilat-Aqaba, recently concluded a maritime pollution cleanup drill in the waters between the two nations, according to a statement by Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency.

In a joint drill held on Oct. 20, the Jordanian side simulated a 100-ton oil leak from a tanker anchored at Aqaba port. The Jordanian crews engaged their Israeli counterparts of the Marine and Coastal Environment Division of the Ministry of Environmental Protection for assistance in reining in the spill.

The two neighbors are equally interested that any oil spill, like the recent massive disaster aboard and in the waters surrounding a British Petroleum oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, could be headed off and cleaned up before the damage is done.

The fallout from such an ecological catastrophe is liable to wreak havoc on what is the world’s most northernmost tropical sea ecosystem. The waters in the Gulf reach a maximum depth of over 1, 800 meters, and contain more than 800 species of fish, over 100 species of coral, and hundreds of species of crustaceans and molluscs, according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In addition, both countries also have interest in keeping their 41 km of shoreline clear of tar, spills and gunk, since Eilat and Aqaba are internationally popular tourist destinations that bring in millions of shekels and dinars for both economies.

In the course of the exercise, the crews successfully deployed oil containment booms from both sides of the 16 km wide Gulf, connecting up to create a single Jordanian-Israeli boom. Meanwhile, vessels from both ports used oil containment, pumping and storage systems to suck up the crude spilled goo, according to the statement.

Israel and Jordan signed an agreement on an ecosystem monitoring and data management in the Gulf, at Aqaba in 2003, known as the Red Sea Marine Peace Park Cooperative Research, Monitoring and Management Program (RSMPP).