Muscat
\nTwo slicks have appeared in Iranian waters, satellite imagery and video verified by Reuters show, as tit-for-tat attacks on oil tankers and other vessels by Iran and the United States spark concerns about environmental damage to the Gulf.
\nA potential environmental disaster is already unfolding off Oman outside of the Strait of Hormuz, where a grounded tanker, the Caroline Bezengi, is leaking Russian crude oil in a protected marine area and has created a massive slick some estimates put at 2,000 square km.
\nThe Caroline Bezengi incident has not been linked to the Iran war. The two latest slicks are inside the Gulf. Near dolphin-shaped island One slick has appeared off the southern tip of Qeshm Island, the large dolphin-shaped island in the Strait of Hormuz close to Iran\u2019s coast, pictures from Copernicus\u2019s \u200bSentinel-2 satellites showed.
\nWim Zwijnenburg, an environmental open-source researcher at Dutch peace organisation PAX, said the dark colour in parts of the slick indicated it was heavy fuel oil, while a lighter diluted slick stretched around 160 km.
\nA dark, bubbling liquid was spotted washing ashore on the beaches of Suza on Qeshm Island, contrasting with the turquoise water surrounding it, in a video posted on August 11 and verified by Reuters.
\n\u201cThis is the biggest one that I\u2019ve seen in recent months, really since the conflict between Iran and the US began,\u201d said John Amos, CEO of SkyTruth, which uses satellite imagery to detect oil spills, calling it a \u201ca major incident\u201d.
\nA second slick was spotted near the smaller Sirri Island in the centre of the Gulf about 100km southwest of Qeshm and home to some Iranian offshore oil and gas production, satellite showed.
\nThe satellite imagery of Qeshm Island was taken on August 10 and that of Sirri Island on August 13.
\nDry bulk carrier was attacked
\nThe Qeshm Island slick likely stemmed from a leak from the Minoan Pioneer, a Liberia-flagged dry bulk ship, said Samir Madani, co-founder of monitoring service TankerTrackers.com.
\nThe Minoan Pioneer was hit by an unknown projectile close to Oman\u2019s coast in a suspected Iranian attack while sailing through the Strait of Hormuz on August 3 and one seafarer went missing, maritime security sources said.
\nThe same leak likely also affected Qeshm Island, one maritime security source told Reuters.
\nA spokesperson for Iran\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmaeil Baghaei, said in a post on X that oil pollution from the Gulf had reached Qeshm Island and that preliminary evidence \u201cindicates a foreign bulk carrier as the source\u201d.
\nReuters could not independently confirm the cause of either slick nor identify the substances involved.
\nA source involved in the salvage operation for the Minoan Pioneer, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of matter, told Reuters on Friday that a tugboat dispatched to secure the grounded vessel could not approach it due to issues related to obtaining permission from Iranian authorities.
\nThe Iranian Mission in Geneva did not respond to a Reuters request \u200bfor immediate comment.
\nThe conflict in the region had complicated efforts to assess and clean up spills in the Gulf, said Brian Barnes, a satellite oceanographer and research assistant professor at the University of South Florida.
\n\u201cThe longer that the oil is leaking into an environment, the more it can spread out and cause damage to ecosystems, coastlines.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Muscat Two slicks have appeared in Iranian waters, satellite imagery and video verified by Reuters show, as tit-for-tat attacks on oil tankers and other vessels by Iran and the United States spark concerns about environmental damage to the Gulf. A potential environmental disaster is already unfolding off Oman outside of the Strait of Hormuz, where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n