Hong Kong-based Gary Stokes of Sea Shepherd says his experience makes him doubt the whole fault in this week’s pollution incident lies in the alleged silence of Chinese authorities.
The special administrative region (SAR) has its own bureaucratic communication difficulties — for example, five different departments that can claim or reject jurisdiction over spills depending on where the pollutant lands (seas, beaches, protected beaches, maritime parks) or whether it endangers human health.
He cited his experience in 2012 when he helped co-ordinate a government response to a 2012 spill of plastic pellets.
"Until you get them all at one table, there's a lot of fingerpointing and 'it's not in my department'," he said.
Palm oil, which forms fatty white clumps of up to fist-size in waters at current local temperatures, is not directly harmful to human or animal health. Stokes adds that he doubts claims of damage to aquaculture on the southern side of Hong Kong, where he has visited pens and seen plenty of clumps but not an unusual number of dead fish.
"That's part of the problem," he says. "I'm afraid [officials] were saying, 'You can eat this stuff, so it's nothing to worry much about'."
Stokes says the biodegradable globs should break down on shore in about 28 days, but the problem is that when they do so, they will biodegrade into the sand and form a nonporous layer a few inches down. Washed back into the water, the nutrient chemicals can also contribute to fish kills or "red tide" conditions. Likewise, the palm oil can create a film that impedes aeration.
But Stokes is one of those who is sceptical of the loss of so much as 9,000 tonnes of cargo, which would imply a major casualty.
