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October 11, 2021
from Stanford University Medical Center
According to a study led by researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine, a massive potential oil spill from an abandoned oil tanker in the Red Sea could have catastrophic public health effects in war-torn Yemen and neighboring countries if urgent action is not taken will.
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The FSO Safer (pronounced with a short « a »), located about 5 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen, contains 1.1 million barrels of oil – more than four times the amount released by the Exxon Valdez in 1989 was spilled. The ship, abandoned since 2015 due to the conflict in Yemen, is increasingly losing oil due to damage to its hull or catches fire from the accumulation of volatile gases or from a direct attack.
The Safer is currently under the control of the Houthis, an insurgent group of Islamists from northwest Yemen. Despite the looming emergency, negotiations between the United Nations and the Houthis over the inspection and repair of the Safer have stalled indefinitely, and no long-term solutions like dumping the oil have been publicly proposed.
« Most people It’s easy to imagine how a massive spill could affect the environment, but the public health effects, especially in a region that is in a humanitarian crisis like Yemen, are harder to pin down, so we modeled it Said Benjamin Huynh, a graduate student in biomedical informatics at Stanford. « Our hope is that by characterizing the public health threat that the ship poses, we can better convey the urgency of the situation and thus help move international parties to a solution. »
Their simulations showed, that full release air pollution would increase the risk of hospitalization for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases by 5.8% to 42%, depending on the duration of the release and the presence of smoke from the burn. Cleanup workers and others who have been directly exposed to the oil could have a 530% increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory hospital stays from inhaling particulate matter. These potential health effects are likely underestimated as oil spills are known to cause neurological, hematological, dermatological and psychiatric symptoms, the researchers said. « We knew of course that an oil spill would have some negative effects, but we were surprised at how many people. » would be affected in most of our scenarios, ”said David Rehkopf, ScD, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health. and co-director of the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences. « We hope this will put more pressure on the international community to dump the oil and prevent this disaster. »
A paper describing the study will be published online in Nature Sustainability on October 11th. Huynh is the lead author and Rehkopf is the senior author.
Large oil spills are known to have far-reaching environmental and economic consequences. The impending threat safer poses to the unique Red Sea ecosystem has been documented, but until now the immediate public health impact of a potential oil tanker has not been clear. The researchers modeled safer’s oil spill among a multitude of weather conditions and took into account past wind patterns, currents, sea temperature, salinity and seasonal and daily weather fluctuations. Thousands of simulations covered a wide range of possible spill durations and trajectories, and consistently indicated catastrophic effects.
Their estimates showed that it would take six to ten days for oil to reach the west coast of Yemen, which would hit the ports of Yemen within two weeks and the port of Aden outside the Red Sea within three weeks. The leak and subsequent port closings could disrupt delivery of critical supplies and exacerbate bottlenecks due to an ongoing sea and air blockade in the country. (The blockade is led by Saudi Arabia as part of its intervention in the Yemen civil war.) The supply of clean water to millions of people would be threatened by the contamination of desalination plants. In addition, 8.4 million people would be unable to receive food aid and all of Yemen’s fisheries in the Red Sea would be at risk. About 38% of Yemen’s fuel needs could be cut off, which could lead to a spike in fuel prices.
« Yemen is very fuel dependent, so losing fuel means closing hospitals and water systems, » Huynh said. “The main insight I want to convey to the audience is that this environmental disaster would also be a major humanitarian disaster, and that a massive oil spill could be very damaging to human health.” Another dire prediction from the study is that cleanup attempts would probably be pointless even under extremely optimistic conditions. The model assumed that cleaning would begin immediately, combining combustion and dispersing agents with a highly efficient skimmer, and taking place under ideal weather conditions. The simulations showed that a six-day cleaning effort would not be more effective than simply letting the oil evaporate. Either way, almost 40% of the oil would be floating in the water.
« I hope the audience doesn’t find out about this problem and see it as a foregone conclusion or something that we can reasonably address after it happens, » said Huynh. « Our models show that cleanup is not very helpful. The only real solution is to remove the oil from the ship, and there is still time to do it. »
Other Stanford co-authors include Mathew Kiang, ScD, an epidemiology and population health instructor; Elizabeth Chin, PhD student in biomedical informatics; and Pascal Geldsetzer, MD, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Primary Care and Population Health.
University of California, Berkeley researchers; Harvard University; Massachusetts General Hospital; the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation; Leading College; the University of Toronto; University of Heidelberg; and the University of California, San Francisco, also contributed to the study.
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