Exploration of Causes and Effects of Land Oil Spills from TANESCO Power Distribution Systems for Mitigating Environmental Degradation in Tanzania

The function of mineral oil is to provide cooling and insulation between windings of transformers in power distribution systems. However, oil spills from transformers pose environmental hazards such as human health effects on nervous systems, weakened immunity, cancer in digestive system, liver and skins. The aim of this study was to explore mitigating measures versus land oil spills from the power utility Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) power distribution systems attributing to environmental degradation in Tanzania, based in Arusha region. The study employed the method of quantitative data analysis. Data collection tools included experiments, questionnaire, office records and structured interview. Sample size involved four natural science expertise (for experiments), eight TANESCO offices (for records), 242 utility employees (for questionnaires) and 45 beneficiaries of power (for structured interview). Data analysis was performed on subsets of transformer external failure-related to elicit the causes of land oil spills that illustrated the majority (75.38%) and internal failure-related causes that indicated the minority (24.62%). The general results indicated vandalism was leading in causing transformer oil spills by 60.30%. It is concluded that transformer oil spills degrade the environment by posing health risks to human beings and biodiversity. The study therefore, established an integrated land oil spill mitigating model based on construction practices, maintenance strategies, manufacturing defects and vandalism proactively against the causes of land oil spills and adopted a model on ecology of alkane-degrading bacteria in plants and soil types reactively against the effects of land oil spills. The study recommends the Ministry of Energy to put policy in place for control of transformer mineral oil spills and provide education for capacity building to both utility employees and power consumers.