Bioremediation to Begin Soon

KOMPAS/ICHWAN SUSANTO

Nurari, a resident of RT V Kampung Baru in Margasari, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan on Sunday (8/4/2018), prepares to collect garbage from the water contaminated by the oil spill in a nearby area.

BALIKPAPAN, KOMPAS — Bioremediation will begin soon to recover the waters of Balikpapan Bay, as the area has become clearer following efforts to clean up the oil spill. The process will help degrade the leftover oil, both on and under the water’s surface.

Bioremediation is possible if the water contains less than 150,000 part per million (ppm) of oil. The oil content can be estimated visually by observing coastal sand.

Utilizing the bioremediation method is critical, as Pertamina has used an oil dispersant to precipitate the oil spill in Balikpapan Bay. The precipitated oil endangers the benthic animals living on the sea floor and within the sea floor sedimentation, including starfish, oysters, clams, sea cucumbers and sea anemones.

The oil left over from the spill has left a residue of oil on the beach and on the roots and leaves of mangroves. On Sunday (8/4/2018), the residents of Margasari subdistrict were still cleaning up oil-contaminated waste from their houses and a local mangrove forest.

In Jakarta, Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut B Pandjaitan said the Balikpapan Bay cleanup was a major priority in managing the impacts of the recent Pertamina pipe leak. The government ensures that it will thoroughly investigate the matter.

Marine pollution expert Yeti Darmayati of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Oceanography Research Center in Jakarta said that bays had a relatively enclosed body of water, and that the water in the bay tended to circulate only within the bay.

Therefore, the oil cleanup should not rely on nature, such as rain, the currents and waves, but should utilize external methods to clean up the residual oil contamination in the area’s waters and sedimentation.

“If we relied on [nature], it would take a very long time,” said Yeti. She said that even cleaning up oil contaminants in Jakarta Bay, which was more geographically more open than Balikpapan Bay, required a long time.

Oil-eating bacteria

In her recent research on the waters of East Kalimantan, Yeti discovered the “oil-eating” bacteria, Pseudomonas cepacia and P gladioi. These bacteria exist naturally in water, especially in areas where oil spills were frequent.

These bacteria degrade the oil using phosphate, nitrogen and oxygen. One thousand oil spills contain 75 nutrients. Based on Yeti’s experience in Cilacap, Central Java, the bacteria could break down 80 percent of 100,000 ppm of oil in three months. Similar discoveries were also made in Indramayu, West Java, and off Pari Island in Jakarta’s Kepulauan Seribu regency.

Pari Island experiences oil spills every year. Thousand Islands environment and hygiene agency head Yusen Hardiman said that a recent oil spill in the area had polluted 10 meters along a local beach.

However, Neighborhood Unit 001-Community Unit 004 head Edi Mulyono in Pari Islands subdistrict said that the oil spill on the southern beach of the island was spread across hundreds of meters. The oil spill in October 2017 killed a large amount of cultivated fish in the northern part of Pari Island.

(ICH/PRA/MHD/JOG)