Oil Spillage - A dangerous problem for environment

In this article we will briefly discuss about oil spillage in the water bodies. Oil spillage means release of petroleum products directly in to water bodies such as oceans and rivers. There were many incidences happened in past related with oil spillage. Oil spillage can also be occurred on land but the impact of oil spillage in water bodies is very high as compared to oil spillage on land. The largest oil spillage in history occurred in Kuwait and in USA. Millions of gallon crude oil was spilled in oceans.

When petroleum product such as crude oil, gasoline, diesel etc spilled in water bodies a layer is formed on the surface of water because the density of petroleum products are less as compared to the density of water. Density of petroleum product is in the range of 700 to 850 kg/m³ and that of water is 1000 kg/m³.

The layer of the petroleum products causes many problems. The first and most dangerous problem is petroleum products are nothing but the hydrocarbons having long chain compounds which are highly carcinogenic. These components remains in water bodies for thousands of year and can enter in any biological food chain very easily. Initially marine animals such as fish were contaminated and then the contamination transfers in to human beings. Direct drinking of petroleum infected water directly combines with human body. These hydrocarbons can penetrate the nucleus of cell and can interfere with the cell functioning. It is found by scientist that if any part of the land is contaminated by petroleum oils then that part of land will be affected for thousands of years and becomes unfertile. So it is always instructed to dispose petroleum product with almost care. Disposal of petroleum products is very critical and difficult task and it is always good to dispose the oils with the help of expert.

The next problem arise due to oil spillage is the problem to the marine animals and plants. As the water surface gets cover with the oil, oxygen from atmosphere cannot be mix with the water so the level of oxygen in water decreases and after some time the animals and fishes inside the water dies. The next problem is related with the photosynthesis of marine plants. As the surface of the water gets covered with oil, sun radiation cannot reach up to the bottom of the water body which adversely affects the photosynthesis process. All these effects impact very badly on the marine life.

So it is very important to avoid oil spillage in the water bodies as well as on lands. It is observed that there is very less awareness among the people regarding this issue. So the first step to eliminate this problem is to aware more and more people about oil spillage issue.

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