All beaches affected by oil spill now fully reopen, as East Coast Park resumes all water activities

SINGAPORE: The whole stretch of beach at East Coast Park has been reopened for all water email activities, including snorkeling and wakeboarding, following the completion of oil flow clean-up operations&nbsp, earlier this month.

With this, all open shores that were impacted by the oil flow in June are now fully reopened and all water activities are permitted.

According to Grace Fu, the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, the water quality along East Coast Park has “returned to normal levels and stabilized since the oil spill,” in a Facebook post on Friday ( Sep 27 ). &nbsp,

Prior to now, the shore had been reopened in August for non-primary call water activities like kayaking, with NParks advising the public against engaging in key call water actions for protection.

Major water email activities involve when the entire body, the face, and trunk are often submerged, and it is possible that some water will be ingested.

East Coast Park is the final public beach to completely reopen following the oil spill on June 14th. Just a few hundred feet of it was used for primary contact water activities until recently.

The oil spill had been caused by a&nbsp, Netherlands-flagged dredger hitting a Singapore-flagged bunker vessel at Pasir Panjang Terminal.

This ruptured an oil cargo tank, releasing about 400 tonnes of low-sulphur fuel into the sea. The oil slick accumulated along a number of beaches, including those at East Coast Park and Sentosa. The beachfronts were then closed for clean-up efforts.

The clean-up operation was conducted in several phases.

The first phase aimed to remove the contaminated sand and oil slicks from the beaches in question. Booms were also deployed to avoid further contamination. &nbsp,

The second phase targeted difficult-to-clean areas like rock bunds, breakwaters and oil trapped deeper in the sand.

The last stage mobilised&nbsp, volunteers to participate in the clean-up and accelerate the reopening of the areas. &nbsp,

Palawan Beach reopened on August 12, Kusu Island beach reopened on August 12, and Siloso Beach at Sentosa reopened on August 13. &nbsp,

Tanjong Beach, which had been the beach “most impacted” by the oil spill, reopened on Sep 3, the same day it was announced that all oil spill clean-up operations were completed. &nbsp,