The In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs has dis­patched a team to con­duct ini­tial eco­log­i­cal as­sess­ments of man­groves, beach­es and oth­er ar­eas af­fect­ed by the oil spill of 7th Feb­ru­ary, caused when the crew-less ves­sel, Gulf Stream, cap­sized nearshore Cove Bay on the At­lantic side of To­ba­go.

In a me­dia re­lease, the IMA said the team analysed da­ta from satel­lite im­agery prod­uct providers such as The Na­tion­al Ocean­ic and At­mos­pher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NOAA) to track the move­ment of the oil-like sub­stance over dis­tance and time, as well as mined years of rich his­tor­i­cal da­ta amassed by IMA for mon­i­tor­ing To­ba­go's ma­rine and coastal en­vi­ron­ments.

It said from this, pre­lim­i­nary pri­or­i­ty sites were de­ter­mined for: where IMA tech­ni­cians should col­lect oil sam­ples; those most vul­ner­a­ble or sus­cep­ti­ble ar­eas (based on both eco­log­i­cal and so­cio-eco­nom­ic val­ue) im­pact­ed by the haz­ard; as well as ar­eas for restora­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

It said at one such site, for ex­am­ple, the team ob­served an oil-like sub­stance en­ter­ing the shel­tered la­goon area in Pe­tit Trou, in­un­dat­ing the sen­si­tive man­grove ecosys­tem.

"This once thriv­ing stand be­gan ex­hibit­ing dieback pri­or to the spill in­ci­dent and so is now con­sid­ered ex­treme­ly vul­ner­a­ble."

The IMA said the team, head­ed by IMA Di­rec­tor Dr Ava Max­am, met with the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, Al­lan Stew­art, the Head of the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA), Marc Rud­der, Chief Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer at the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI), Gillian Stanis­laus, En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­gramme Of­fi­cer II at the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) in To­ba­go and oth­er mem­bers of the re­sponse team, which com­prised of­fi­cials from Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard and oth­ers, to re­port their ini­tial find­ings and pro­vide ad­vice on how cleanup ac­tiv­i­ties should pro­ceed giv­en that some of the af­fect­ed ar­eas are eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive such as the nest­ing grounds of the crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered Hawks­bill tur­tle.

On 11th Feb­ru­ary 2024, the IMA al­so col­lect­ed sam­ples for oil fin­ger­print­ing, that is, to de­ter­mine whether there is a link be­tween im­pact­ed ar­eas and ef­flu­ent em­a­nat­ing from the source at the over­turned ves­sel.

It said this is in ad­di­tion to sam­ples pre­vi­ous­ly re­ceived on Feb­ru­ary 8th from The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard. Along with oil fin­ger­print­ing, sam­ples will be con­tin­u­ous­ly processed for dis­solved and dis­persed pe­tro­le­um hy­dro­car­bons (DDPH) to de­ter­mine the con­cen­tra­tion of hy­dro­car­bons in the wa­ter col­umn over time, un­til re­sults in­di­cate a re­turn to pre-in­ci­dent lev­els. "This mon­i­tor­ing will form part of IMA's plan to re­cov­er and re­store the af­fect­ed sites."