RAYONG — Residents and fishing industry workers in Muang district complained on Sunday that small tar balls believed, to be from the 2013 oil spill off Rayong, had washed ashore on Laem Charoen beach.
Lamom Boonyong, chairman of Pak Nam Baan Rao Fishermen’s Club, said the sticky tar balls mixed with garbage had washed up all along the beach. The club members had collected them in plastic bags and sent them to concerned state agencies for examination.
A similar discovery was reported by villagers and tourists at Mae Ram Phueng Beach.
Mr Lamom said his group still occasionally detected tar balls washing ashore on Rayong beaches after the PTT Global Chemical oil spill on July 27, 2013 that devastated Ao Phrao beach on Koh Samet. The sticky mess is believed to be a byproduct of the company’s use of oil dispersant chemicals during the clean-up operation.
The group demanded authorities conduct a comprehensive survey to find out how much oil leftover was still under the Rayong sea and collect it. He said local fishermen were catching fewer fish and other marine animals during high tide than they used to before the oil spill.
“A trawler now catches less than a kilo of chair buay shrimp (banana shrimp) when they go out to sea,” Mr Lamom said.