Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Fish­er­men at King's Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, say an oil spill in the Gulf of Paria has spread more than five miles in­to the sea. A thin film of oil was seen close to the fish­ing port where dozens of fish­er­men washed out their nets and fixed their boat en­gines. Fish­er­man Anil Ram­per­sad said more than one mile of net, val­ued at more than $30,000, was dam­aged by the oil. He said for the past 11 days, fish­er­men had not been catch­ing any fish be­cause of the spill. "When the nets have oil, the fish stay away," he said. "I fish more than five miles out. I have spent close to $800 in gas to go out there and I am not get­ting any catch."

He said his loss­es have amount­ed to more than $11,000 since the spill. "We want the min­istry to com­pen­sate us...We have chil­dren to sup­port, but since we re­port­ed the spill, no­body has as­sist­ed us," he said. He said more than over 20 boats were af­fect­ed by the spill.

Mean­while, Roy Bhual, who was fix­ing his boat en­gine, said no at­tempt was be­ing made to clean the spill. Bhual said it is pos­si­ble that the oil may have orig­i­nat­ed in the Oropouche la­goon. "If we look at the di­rec­tion of the oil, it is pos­si­ble that it came from the Oropouche la­goon," he said. He ex­plained that the heavy rains and the re­cent flood­ing had caused the oil to flow in­to the Gulf from the Gordineau Riv­er.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, in a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, said she spoke with Petrotrin of­fi­cials who ac­knowl­edged that it was their pipeline that was spilling the oil. Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the oil had spread be­cause of the rains and that clean-up work had been start­ed. She said gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials would have to speak with farm­ers and those af­fect­ed re­gard­ing com­pen­sa­tion. Asked whether Petrotrin would have to do as­sess­ments on un­der­ground lines, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said this would be done and a re­port sub­mit­ted.