Richard Lord

An SOS has been sent to one of the world's largest oil spill re­sponse com­pa­nies based in Fort Laud­erdale, Flori­da, to come to T&T to as­sist with the clean­ing-up of a nine-mile area along the La Brea shore­line from Cof­fee and Car­rat Shed beach­es and oth­er ar­eas.Of­fi­cials from Oil Spill Re­sponse Ltd are ex­pect­ed to vis­it La Brea to­day to be­gin work.

En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine made the dis­clo­sure in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian af­ter a site vis­it yes­ter­day with pres­i­dent of state-owned Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny of T&T (Petrotrin) Khalid Has­sanali and Tourism Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma, the MP for the bor­der­ing Fyz­abad con­stituen­cy.The oil spill was dis­cov­ered on Tues­day and a sub­se­quent state­ment from Petrotrin said fam­i­lies liv­ing as far away as Chatham, Point Fortin, had to be evac­u­at­ed be­cause of the in­ci­dent.

Up to yes­ter­day, the source of the spill was not known. In a press re­lease is­sued late yes­ter­day, Ram­nar­ine said ad­di­tion­al ar­eas af­fect­ed were Sta­tion Bay, Pa­tience, Granville, Fuller­ton and Ce­dros.Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union An­cel Ro­get said Petrotrin must take some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the mishap. Ro­get al­so said his union sus­pect­ed there was "a mas­sive cov­er-up by Petrotrin to shield their friends in the lease op­er­a­tor­ship arrange­ment."

Ro­get said "si­lence and a cloud of se­cre­cy are shroud­ed around the lease op­er­a­tors in the La Brea sit­u­a­tion."Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian af­ter yes­ter­day's vis­it, Ram­nar­ine said the spill was "se­ri­ous and re­quired ur­gent at­ten­tion."He said the re­cent­ly-es­tab­lished Na­tion­al Oil Spill Con­tin­gency Plan was be­ing trig­gered to the high­est lev­el–Tier 3. He ex­plained that the Tier 3 lev­el was be­ing trig­gered be­cause ex­ter­nal help was re­quired to deal with the prob­lem.

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­nar­ine, "a spill like the one in La Brea has not oc­curred in this coun­try in liv­ing mem­o­ry."Ram­nar­ine said Tier 1 is trig­gered if the com­pa­ny has re­sources to han­dle the spill; Tier 2 would be trig­gered if na­tion­al re­sources were re­quired and Tier 3 is trig­gered if ex­ter­nal as­sis­tance is re­quired.He said Petrotrin had a good re­la­tion­ship with Oil Spill Re­sponse Ltd, which was pre­vi­ous­ly known as Clean Caribbean Amer­i­c­as.

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­nar­ine, of­fi­cials from the US firm were prepar­ing to come to T&T yes­ter­day via a spe­cial car­go flight. He said all re­quired equip­ment were be­ing brought on the flight.The min­is­ter said the team would go to the site to­day. He said his min­istry was man­ag­ing the clean-up ex­er­cise in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Petrotrin.

Head of the Na­tion­al Oil Spill Con­tin­gency Plan is per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the min­istry, Sel­wyn Lash­ley. Ram­nar­ine said the deputy head is Mark Rud­der, a se­nior pe­tro­le­um en­gi­neer in the same min­istry.

The min­is­ter said the in­ci­dent "was still a great mys­tery for us at the min­istry and at Petrotrin." He said in­ves­ti­ga­tions were con­tin­u­ing to de­ter­mine the source of the dis­cov­ery, which he said was a "hy­dro­car­bon spill."He said: "At this point we don't want to blame any­body, we have not ac­cused any­body of any­thing and we don't want to make this in­to a po­lit­i­cal is­sue.

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­nar­ine, there were oth­er spills at Petrotrin in­stal­la­tions at Pointe-a-Pierre and Ran­cho Que­ma­do and two at Trinidad Ma­rine Ltd (Trin­mar) last week.

More In­fo:

�2 De­cem­ber 17, 2013: A weld leak was dis­cov­ered on the No. 10 Sea Line at the Petrotrin, Pointe-a-Pierre, Port dur­ing fu­el oil bunkers load­ing op­er­a­tions for the barge Mara­bel­la.

�2 Lat­er that same day a gas­ket on a line at Ris­er Plat­form 5 in Trin­mar's Main Field leaked and oil spilled in­to the sea.

�2 De­cem­ber 18: Petrotrin re­ceived re­ports of oil at the Cof­fee Beach/Car­rat Shed Beach ar­eas in La Brea, af­fect­ing the beach and fish­ing ves­sels.

�2 The Na­tion­al Oil Spill Con­tin­gency Plan (NOSCP) was trig­gered to the Tier Two Lev­el and an In­ci­dent Com­mand Team, com­pris­ing the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs (MEEA), the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA), the Coast Guard and the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Ad­min­is­tra­tion (OS­HA), be­gan its as­sess­ment of the spill and clean-up ac­tiv­i­ties.

�2 De­cem­ber 19: An oil leak was dis­cov­ered in the area of Plat­form 17 in Petrotrin's Trin­mar Op­er­a­tions East Field.

�2 De­cem­ber 21: Trin­i­ty Oil and Gas re­port­ed that sev­er­al valves on well-site tanks were dis­cov­ered opened at its Petrotrin WD-2 Lease Op­er­a­tor­ship Block in Ran­cho Que­ma­do.

�2 The spills that oc­curred at Pointe-a-Pierre, Ris­er Plat­form 5 and Plat­form 17 in Petrotrin's Trin­mar Op­er­a­tions were suc­cess­ful­ly con­tained and the clean-up ex­er­cise is con­tin­u­ing. On De­cem­ber 19, clean-up ac­tiv­i­ties at the Port at Pointe-a-Pierre were com­plet­ed and ter­mi­nat­ed.

�2 De­cem­ber 22: the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy trig­gered the NOSCP at the Tier Three Lev­el to bring in over­seas re­sources.

Oil Spill Re­sponse Lim­it­ed Web site says the com­pa­ny pro­vides "re­sources to re­spond to oil spills ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly on a glob­al ba­sis. Oil Spill Re­sponse will con­tin­ue its pur­suit of ex­cel­lence in pro­vid­ing cost ef­fec­tive oil spill re­sponse, train­ing and con­sul­tan­cy ser­vices.Oil Spill Re­sponse will work to­wards im­prov­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, aware­ness of re­sources and ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and where ap­pro­pri­ate, en­cour­age mu­tu­al sup­port among the glob­al pop­u­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al tier three oil spill co-op­er­a­tives.