RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um has re­strict­ed ac­cess to a makeshift bridge in Moru­ga, spark­ing frus­tra­tion among farm­ers who re­ly on it to ac­cess their farm­lands.

The bridge, built by farm­ers in De­cem­ber 2021 us­ing per­son­al funds af­ter the orig­i­nal struc­ture col­lapsed, con­nects the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty to the Guayagua­yare re­gion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Moru­ga MP Michelle Ben­jamin called on Her­itage to meet with the af­fect­ed farm­ers, as over 70 of them are now un­able to reach their lands with­out tak­ing a longer route through Guayagua­yare. She called on Her­itage and the Min­istry of Works to con­sid­er in­stalling a Bai­ley bridge to ad­dress the con­cerns.

How­ev­er, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um ex­plained in a state­ment that the bridge, which was con­struct­ed near an ac­tive ten-inch crude oil and con­den­sate pipeline, posed a risk to both the com­mu­ni­ty and the com­pa­ny’s op­er­a­tions.

The com­pa­ny cit­ed safe­ty con­cerns re­gard­ing the in­tegri­ty of the bridge, not­ing po­ten­tial dam­age to the pipeline.

“This struc­ture was con­struct­ed in the im­me­di­ate vicin­i­ty of an ac­tive ten-inch crude oil and con­den­sate pipeline, that is crit­i­cal to the op­er­a­tions of Her­itage and oth­er op­er­a­tors from the East Coast. There are se­ri­ous con­cerns re­gard­ing the in­tegri­ty of the makeshift struc­ture, the pos­si­ble im­pact use of it can have on this ac­tive ten-inch pipeline, and the safe­ty risks the unau­tho­rised bridge pos­es to its users,” Her­itage said.

The com­pa­ny al­so said its ef­forts to alert stake­hold­ers to these con­cerns have gone un­heed­ed, lead­ing the com­pa­ny to take the de­ci­sion, “as a rea­son­able and pru­dent op­er­a­tor, to re­strict ac­cess.”

Her­itage al­so said its of­fi­cials had met with stake­hold­ers to sen­si­tise them about the is­sue.

“The com­pa­ny re­mains open to con­tin­ued di­a­logue to re­solve the mat­ter. We re­mind the pub­lic that Her­itage’s op­er­a­tions are high-risk, and all laws, rules, and reg­u­la­tions are im­ple­ment­ed to pro­tect both the com­mu­ni­ty and Her­itage’s as­sets,” it added.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that farm­ers are now re­quest­ing that Her­itage re­build the bridge.