Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Clax­ton Bay fish­er­men have added their voice to the call for com­pen­sa­tion for loss­es they will in­cur be­cause of Petrotrin's seis­mic sur­veys be­ing done in the Gulf of Paria.Yes­ter­day Bha­dose Sook­nanan, vice-pres­i­dent of the Clax­ton Bay Fish­er­men As­so­ci­a­tion, in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, said Clax­ton Bay fish­er­men are suf­fer­ing be­cause of the seis­mic test­ing and want com­pen­sa­tion.

"Right now the boats are hard­ly work­ing...The gas and oil are very ex­pen­sive and we are not hold­ing any­thing to cov­er our ex­pens­es," he said. "It not mak­ing sense to us, be­cause when you go out there is on­ly two and three fish in your catch. It is very bad. The catch would be about 100 pounds, that is about two buck­ets or three buck­ets."Petrotrin start­ed the test­ing on De­cem­ber 30.Fish­er­men have called on the state-run oil and gas com­pa­ny to hold off on the tests un­til the oil spill in La Brea has been cleaned up.

On Mon­day, Petrotrin pres­i­dent Khalid Has­sanali, at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the com­pa­ny's head­quar­ters, promised af­fect­ed fish­er­men would be com­pen­sat­ed. He said Ce­dros fish­er­men have been paid $2.6 mil­lion and La Brea and Point Fortin fish­er­men are still to set­tle on a com­pen­sa­tion fig­ure.

He added that the seis­mic test­ing was be­ing done in an area rep­re­sent­ing five per cent of the Gulf and fish­er­men were al­lowed to fish in the re­main­ing 95 per cent. In the past, dur­ing seis­mic test­ing fish­ing was not al­lowed, but in this case, he said, fish­er­men are free to fish.Sook­nanan said even though they are al­lowed to fish there is noth­ing to catch.

"When they drag the ca­bles on the seabed the fish would not stay there. It is like an earth­quake: when you in a build­ing and it start to shake, what you do? Run away? Well, that is what hap­pens with the fish."He said fish­er­men in Clax­ton Bay, Mara­bel­la and San Fer­nan­do al­so fish in the Gulf and Petrotrin should ad­dress their call for com­pen­sa­tion.

"The seis­mic is very dan­ger­ous to the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty and fish­er­folk," he said. "It is not on­ly af­fect­ing Ce­dros, La Brea and Point Fortin, it is af­fect­ing the whole Gulf, be­cause it is a basin, and where they are do­ing the sur­vey is at the mouth of the basin. We ask­ing for them to hold their hand on the seis­mic sur­vey for a lit­tle while un­til they clean up the oil spill."