Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Hun­dreds of La Brea res­i­dents were in some dis­com­fort last night be­cause of tox­ic fumes em­a­nat­ing from an oil spill which Petrotrin claimed to have con­tained the day be­fore. And res­i­dents are de­mand­ing an­swers from the state-run oil gi­ant.

A Petrotrin of­fi­cial last evening con­firmed that based on re­ports they had re­ceived yes­ter­day, a spill which they ini­tial­ly dis­cov­ered in Pointe-a-Pierre on Tues­day, and claimed to have con­tained there, may have af­fect­ed the Point Fortin and La Brea com­mu­ni­ties be­cause of the move­ment of the tide.

But this has of­fered lit­tle so­lace for irate res­i­dent Ash­wain Mod­este, who lives near Queen's Beach, al­so known as the "D Cof­fee," in La Brea, where the oil spill was most ev­i­dent yes­ter­day. He ex­pressed hor­ror up­on see­ing the thick oil sludge that lined the shore­line."They (Petrotrin) say they have every­thing con­tained...look at that," Mod­este said when the Guardian vis­it­ed, point­ing to the thick pools of oil along the shore.

Mod­este said the pun­gent smell of crude oil, which caused a nau­seous feel­ing, was over­whelm­ing and would have brought dis­com­fort for his fam­i­ly last night."I do not know how we go­ing to make out with that here tonight (last night) and there is noth­ing that could be done now about it. The tide high and the wind strong," he lament­ed.

Petrotrin, in a re­lease is­sued ear­li­er in the day, had as­sured that "it has mo­bilised all avail­able re­sources to man­age the spill re­sponse ef­forts in an ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient man­ner and the sit­u­a­tion is un­der con­trol."How­ev­er, it was clear to wor­ried fish­er­men in La Brea that the oil spill was far from con­tained.Many fish­er­men yes­ter­day looked on help­less­ly as their boats, moored near the shore at "D Cof­fee," be­came en­veloped in the oily sludge. Their fish­ing nets, which were tied in the wa­ter, had all been de­stroyed.

Fish­er­man Wilbert Ping, 59, of Freel­ing Street, La Brea, said he could not be­lieve his eyes when he saw the oil spill head­ing to the shore around 1 pm."When I see it (the oil spill) all the boats were al­ready tied up. There was noth­ing no­body could do. The fish­er­men and them leave al­ready. We tried to call some of them, but no­body could save their boats," he lament­ed.He said no one could go out in­to the wa­ter un­til Petrotrin cleaned the oily sludge.

Last night, Petrotrin per­son­nel, some wear­ing face masks and dressed in cov­er­alls, gath­ered on the shore at Queen's Beach to as­sess the oil dam­age.Crews were seen emp­ty­ing bags of Car­sorb Peat Moss–an ab­sorbant used to clean up oil spills–along the shore and in the wa­ter to stop the oil from spread­ing fur­ther in­land.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the Petrotrin re­lease had stat­ed that fol­low­ing oil spill clean-up ef­forts on Tues­day, per­son­nel at Petrotrin "ob­served from an aer­i­al sur­vey as well as boat sur­veys con­duct­ed to­day (yes­ter­day), that there was no sheen or oil along the shore­line span­ning Clax­ton Bay, San Fer­nan­do, Mos­qui­to Creek and Ota­heite."

The re­lease said: "Re­sponse ef­forts have been co-or­di­nat­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with per­son­nel from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency."

But the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact of the oil spill was clear yes­ter­day, as crabs scur­ry­ing out of their holes to get their night­ly meal last night were trapped in the sludge that lined the shore. Apart from the oily sheen on the wa­ter, oil was seen on the sand and the de­bris that washed ashore. Oil was al­so seen on the shore­line at Sta­tion Bay, which is al­most a mile away from Queen's Bay.

An­dre Kir­ton, 50, who re­sides near Sta­tion Beach, said when he went for his evening run he was stunned to see the oil on the sand and the murky brown hue of the sea wa­ter."We need to get some­one to come in and clean up the beach. I was shocked to see the con­di­tion the beach was in be­cause when I take my morn­ing run to­day (yes­ter­day), the beach was nice and clean and the air was not smelling like this," he said.