Suspected Bilge Dumping off Corsica

Landsat-8 image (inset) showing two parallel slicks off Corsica. Image taken September 2, 2013.

We got a tip early this morning from a friend in France that an oil spill had been reported in the Mediterranean Sea off the northwest coast of Corsica.  Today's MODIS images showed nothing of interest.  But we did find a brand-new Landsat-8 satellite image that was taken yesterday (September 2), and it shows two parallel slicks that appear to be bilge-dumping incidents. We've really boosted the contrast in the images below, so you can more clearly see the slicks.

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Bilge Dumping off Vietnam - February 22, 2012

We've posted about bilge dumping before - the practice of flushing the oily slop out of your vessel, straight into the ocean.  It's illegal in a lot of places, but it is very hard to enforce.  SkyTruth's daily offshore monitoring program just caught this fine (awful?) example of bilge dumping off the coast of Vietnam, in a major north-south shipping lane about 115 miles offshore: 

Envisat ASAR satellite radar image off Vietnam, February 22, 2012. Image courtesy European Space Agency.

 Zooming in on those black streaks, and turning the image west-up, here's a closer look at this mess:

Envisat ASAR image courtesy European Space Agency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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