Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

The Dutch An­tilles, a trio of is­lands be­tween 800 and 1,000 kilo­me­tres west of To­ba­go, are all on alert as oil from the To­ba­go oil spill cre­at­ed by the Gul­stream barge drifts across the Caribbean Sea and their Bonaire gov­ern­ment wants to take le­gal ac­tion against those re­spon­si­ble for the en­vi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter.

The spill, con­tain­ing in­ter­me­di­ate fu­el oil or bunker fu­el, first washed up on To­ba­go’s coast­line on Feb­ru­ary 7, has trav­elled out of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mar­itime wa­ters to­wards Grena­da and Venezuela over the last three weeks and first be­gan af­fect­ing the east­ern-most Dutch is­land of Bonaire on Feb­ru­ary 26.

Sticht­ing Na­tionale Parken Bonaire, an en­vi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion or­gan­i­sa­tion, has co­or­di­nat­ed clean-up ef­forts in Sorobon, Lac and La­gun in Bonaire since Feb­ru­ary 26, and stat­ed sev­er­al dead fish have float­ed ashore on the is­land’s east­ern coast­lines.

Bonaire’s act­ing gov­er­nor Nol­ly Oleana said at a me­dia con­fer­ence that ef­forts for the clean-up in the area of Lac and Sorobon are in full swing. She said these ar­eas, vi­tal for fish­er­folk, busi­ness­es and tourists, will be pri­ori­tised. Oil has washed up pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly over the last week on the is­land’s east­ern coast­lines but has not made it to the dive sites and heav­i­ly traf­ficked tourist ar­eas on the is­land’s west­ern side.

Oleana has an­nounced that a re­quest has been sub­mit­ted for mil­i­tary as­sis­tance on Bonaire.

“Mil­i­tary units will be de­ployed to as­sist in clean­ing up the oil spill,” the act­ing gov­er­nor said.

How­ev­er, Oleana raised con­cerns about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fur­ther oil spilling in sev­er­al in­lets on the is­land and stressed the im­por­tance of swift ac­tion to pre­vent fur­ther dam­age to wildlife. A group of 15 sol­diers from the Nether­lands Min­istry of De­fense has been as­sist­ing in Food­ies and La­gun, fol­lowed by Pun­to Kalbas and Mar Cul­tura, Bonaire.

Bonaire said it has been work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­gard­ing com­pen­sa­tion.

At yes­ter­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence, she ex­plained, “We are in con­tact with Trinidad and To­ba­go. To­geth­er, we do want to pros­e­cute. A le­gal ex­pert from the Nether­lands is in con­tact with a lawyer from Trinidad and To­ba­go. That’s what they’re about. We both just don’t know who owns the ship yet. And we al­so don’t know who owns the oil prod­uct on the ship. Once this is known, fol­low-up steps will be tak­en.”

As clean-up ef­forts con­tin­ue on the is­land, Ju­dith Ram­ing, the man­ag­er of Bonaire Na­tion­al Ma­rine Park, said fur­ther clean-up ef­forts will con­tin­ue with the sup­port of the mil­i­tary but in­sist­ed that no sup­port from vol­un­teers is need­ed.

Cu­raçao, Aru­ba on alert

Cu­raçao’s Min­istry of Health, En­vi­ron­ment and Na­ture (GMN), in a state­ment, al­so said yes­ter­day that mul­ti­ple in­sti­tu­tions are mon­i­tor­ing and have be­gun prepa­ra­tions to deal with “even­tu­al sea pol­lu­tion in north­ern/west­ern parts of Cu­raçao” and “all mar­itime in­sti­tu­tions are on a state of alert.”

The alert fol­lowed days af­ter oil first washed up on Bonaire’s coast­line.

How­ev­er, GMN’s sec­tor di­rec­tor, Gabriel Mur­ray, said Cu­raçao does not have oil booms to close off the mouths of crit­i­cal streams and bays.

In an in­ter­view with lo­cal me­dia in Cu­raçao, he said the is­land still had to in­vest in booms and sug­gest­ed that the oil is un­like­ly to come ashore. If it does, Mur­ray said it will be re­moved man­u­al­ly with ex­ca­va­tors.

Aru­ba, the fur­thest west of the Dutch An­tilles, is al­so now on alert, as satel­lite im­agery de­tect­ed the oil from the To­ba­go spill drift­ing north of the is­land to drift across the south­ern Caribbean Sea.

The di­rec­tor of Aru­ba’s Cri­sis Man­age­ment Of­fice, Ri­no Her­mans, said, “We have di­vid­ed Aru­ba’s ter­ri­to­ry in­to four sec­tions so each de­part­ment is mon­i­tor­ing.”

He added that tur­tle nest­ing sites and tourist beach­es will be pro­tect­ed.

The Aru­ba gov­ern­ment said it plans to ac­ti­vate a 60-per­son team of first re­spon­ders and a clean-up plan as soon as the oil spicks are vis­i­ble near its shores, ac­cord­ing to Her­mans.

Her­mans said Aru­ba’s gov­ern­ment is ready to help Bonaire with clean-up and “hu­man re­sources are need­ed, not equip­ment, in this phase.”