Kevon Felmine

As the car­cass­es of fish, pel­i­cans and even a dol­phin washed up on the beach­es of La Brea last week­end, pres­i­dent of the La Brea Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion Alvin La Bor­de is plead­ing with the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) to con­duct com­pre­hen­sive stud­ies on tox­i­c­i­ty lev­els of the Gulf of Paria.

Speak­ing by tele­phone yes­ter­day, La Bor­de said al­though many peo­ple blame Petrotrin's oil spill in De­cem­ber 2013, the wash­ing up of dead fish in La Brea has been go­ing on long be­fore that in­ci­dent.

How­ev­er, he said it had been in­creas­ing in re­cent times and it was be­com­ing ex­treme­ly wor­ry­ing as they feared the gulf may be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.

Yes­ter­day, Point Sable, Carat Shed Beach and Cof­fee Beach were feast­ing grounds for cor­beaux as car­cass­es lit­tered the shore­line for miles. A few beach­go­ers who gath­ered at Carat Shed Beach said they dared not en­ter the wa­ter as they were not sure if the beach was safe.

La Bor­de said: "We're not point­ing fin­gers at any par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­ual or com­pa­ny but we must be mind­ful that there are a lot of com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing around the Gulf of Paria.

"The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) stat­ed that com­pa­nies are not send­ing in their wa­ter sam­ples as they ought too. I don't know whose fault it is but I be­lieve if the EMA is in charge, they need to en­force the rules.

"Fish sales have not dropped but we need to be sure that fish that are be­ing put on fam­i­lies' ta­bles are safe to eat. We are look­ing at peo­ple bathing on the beach­es and they can come in­to con­tact with what­ev­er chem­i­cals are killing the fish and that will cre­ate an­oth­er prob­lem.

"Dead fish wash­ing ashore is some­thing that was tak­ing place long be­fore the oil spill so it is not to say every­thing that has hap­pened since is be­cause of the spill.

"EMA has to col­lect the prop­er sam­ples from com­pa­nies in the Gulf of Paria and they need to in­ves­ti­gate what is killing the fish. They need to be more stricter with the com­pa­nies they gave cer­tifi­cates of en­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance to be­cause some of them are do­ing what they want."

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Cheap­er topol­lute–EMAchair­man

EMA chair­man Dr Al­lan Bachan said yes­ter­day that sam­ples of the car­cass­es have been tak­en for tests and as soon as re­sults were ready, he would give a re­port. Asked whether the EMA be­lieved there was a prob­lem in the Gulf of Paria, he said there had been a his­to­ry of nat­ur­al oil seep­age, which dat­ed back over 100 years.

How­ev­er, he said the cause of the fish kills were un­known as there were many in­dus­tries that re­leased waste in­to the gulf. "There are a num­ber of pa­ra­me­ters with re­gards to the Gulf of Paria be­cause it has been a high­ly in­dus­tri­alised zone for over 100 years.

"One will re­mem­ber that in the ear­ly days, a preva­lent fac­tor in the Gulf of Paria has been nat­ur­al oil seep­age. Know­ing that is the nat­ur­al make up of the Gulf of Paria, it is very dif­fi­cult to say what ex­act­ly is the di­rect cause.

"You have that fac­tor of in­dus­tries in the area and you know, we as a so­ci­ety have not been a very car­ing one for the en­vi­ron­ment. The way for­ward is that we have to ad­dress this through prop­er en­force­ment and com­pli­ance.

"En­force­ment will hurt peo­ple who pol­lute. Right now it is ridicu­lous in terms of the con­se­quences as it cheap­er to pol­lute than to put in place, prop­er mea­sures," Bachan said.

He said the EMA was work­ing on es­tab­lish­ing wa­ter pol­lu­tion rules for com­pa­nies, adding that it has start­ed to pro­file ar­eas where su­per in­dus­tri­al en­ti­ties ex­ist so that it can de­ter­mine their risks to the en­vi­ron­ment and it is al­so mov­ing to es­tab­lish a wa­ter lab so that it can have time­ly re­sults of sam­ples.