GEORGE TOWN: The heavy metal nickel – in a concentration 944% higher than natural – has been found in the sea off Penang National Park in Teluk Bahang.
It is identified as the probable pollutant that led to anoxic or dead zones with hardly any dissolved oxygen along the island’s north coast since last month and may also be killing live marine specimens in a research lab at the park’s beach.
Prof Tan said while pure nickel was a metal, nickel compounds exist inorganically as salts or organically as carbon-based molecules.“So we don’t know what the raw form of the pollutant is,” she said, adding that other heavy metals were found to be at normal levels, such as copper at 0.077ppm, where the acceptable standard is higher at 0.09ppm.
But it is highly toxic to plant life including sea algae, and Prof Tan said algae could have died in such vast amounts that their decomposition robbed the sea of DO, which in turn kills other marine life. Besides the near-zero DO level in Tanjung Bungah, Prof Tan said the sea off Monkey Beach, a popular tourist spot in Penang National Park, had a DO level of just 2.13mg/L 50cm beneath the surface and 1.84mg/L at the seabed 4m deep.
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