The tourism season may have folded up on a high in several parts of Goa, but it has left an ‘oily’ trail in some places as tar balls along beaches continued to lash the shores creating nuisance to the last few tourists and visitors alike. Bambolim’s pristine one-kilometer stretch wore a greasy-black look after the high temperatures of the sea water virtually melted the tar balls and emanated a thick oily fluid. The dark brown film over the water has been a huge disappointment for the few tourists and locals that have been flocking to the beach. Tar balls are known to be formed from oil discharged by vessels in high seas and the State has been periodically witnessing large amount of tar ball depositions along its coast. It’s not only a problem for tourists and locals that visit the beaches. The toxic content of tar can prove lethal to marine fauna and the petroleum-like fluid which seeps into the sand could severely damage marine organisms. Although NIO has been has been collecting and fingerprinting the tar ball samples from the west coast since 2010, the flow of chemicals into the sea by vessels have not been brought under the radar. Mechanisms should be put in place to track down vessels responsible for discharging oil in the the high seas. At a time when the tourism department is in a process of issuing a fresh tender for beach cleaning, the issue of tar balls should be also a subject of serious debate.
