Resh­ma Ra­goonath

La Brea MP Fitzger­ald Jef­frey says oil spillaf­fect­ed res­i­dents of Cof­fee Beach are falling sick and he be­lieves their ill­ness­es are linked to Petrotrin's use of the dis­per­sant Corex­it 9500. Corex­it 9500 was sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly linked to can­cer af­ter it was used dur­ing the 2010 BP Gulf of Mex­i­co oil spill. The US En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) flagged the chem­i­cal dis­per­sant for its can­cer-caus­ing agents. Red flags were al­so raised lo­cal­ly when Petrotrin ad­mit­ted to us­ing it in the ini­tial days af­ter the De­cem­ber 17, oil spills in La Brea.

Petrotrin said it used Corex­it 9500 for two days at the start of clean-up op­er­a­tions. The com­pa­ny de­fend­ed its use of Corex­it, say­ing it is list­ed as one of the ap­proved dis­per­sants on the Na­tion­al Oil Spill Con­tin­gency Plan and was used in ac­cor­dance with ap­proved guide­lines. Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Jef­frey said res­i­dents at Cof­fee Beach, the hard­est hit area dur­ing the oil spill, have been com­plain­ing of feel­ing un­well.

"Yes, the beach has al­most been com­plete­ly cleaned, ex­cept in the man­grove...It still has a lot of work to be done in the man­grove, but peo­ple are com­plain­ing about dizzi­ness, headaches, bel­ly pain, chest pain, itch­ing and so on and that wor­ries me," he said. Jef­frey said he re­viewed what hap­pened in Alas­ka (af­ter the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill), the Gulf of Mex­i­co (BP spill) and what res­i­dents have been com­plain­ing about and he is dis­tressed.

"We re­alise that there is a sim­i­lar­i­ty in the com­plaints and in the case of the Alas­ka sit­u­a­tion we re­alise that there is a kind of can­cer that is re­lat­ed to, at­trib­uted to the use of the chem­i­cal, Corex­it 9500. So peo­ple are a lit­tle bit con­cerned about that," he said. The La Brea MP said Petrotrin must ad­dress all health con­cerns raised by the res­i­dents, not on­ly in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture but lat­er down the road as well.

"I just hope that Petrotrin will re­al­ly and tru­ly in­tro­duce free test­ing and do pe­ri­od­ic test­ing from time to time on a free ba­sis so that peo­ples' health is not com­pro­mised," he said. "I think that every res­i­dent should have been test­ed from the time we had the oil spill and we do pe­ri­od­ic test­ing to see if the sit­u­a­tion has been ag­gra­vat­ed and so on." Jef­frey said long-term mon­i­tor­ing must be im­ple­ment­ed in the area to en­sure the res­i­dents' health is looked af­ter.

"Some kind of arrange­ment must be made to give these peo­ple prop­er health­care, even if it is for a ten-year or a 15-year pe­ri­od and so on, be­cause the oil spill is not of their do­ing...They were in­no­cent by­standers," he said. Jef­frey said he in­tends to hold a me­dia con­fer­ence to­mor­row (Thurs­day) where he will fur­ther dis­cuss his con­cerns. "We want to look at the chem­i­cal that was used in the clean up...it has some con­se­quence I think we can­not treat very light­ly," he added.

Jef­frey said he al­so wants to ad­dress the is­sue of com­pen­sa­tion for not on­ly the fish­er­men, but res­i­dents in the area. He al­so said crab catch­ers whose liveli­hoods are af­fect­ed by the oil spill's im­pact on the Aripero man­grove should be com­pen­sat­ed. Yes­ter­day, En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) of­fi­cials re­turned to Point Sable beach, where they met with con­trac­tors and Petrotrin staff and did air-qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing tests.

Fri­day said in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the cause of the oil spill which oc­curred on De­cem­ber 17 at Pointe-a-Pierre are con­tin­u­ing and the op­er­a­tional re­port on the spill was re­viewed on Mon­day. "How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing," she said.

Man­grove in trou­ble

En­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivist Marc De Ver­teuil says he is dis­sat­is­fied with Petrotrin's de­lay in clean­ing up the oil-spillaf­fect­ed Aripero Man­grove. De Ver­teuil, a di­rec­tor of the en­vi­ron­men­tal group Pa­pa Bois Con­ser­va­tion, said on his vis­it to the man­grove on Mon­day he found an ab­sence of clean-up crews and the oil spill most present. "We were sur­prised to find no clean-up crews ac­tive (in the man­grove on Mon­day)," he said.

"The beach looked much clean­er than when I was there a week ago, but there was still sig­nif­i­cant oil on the beach and the man­grove was still very much oil slicked. "The man­grove roots are cov­ered in oil and is start­ing to show signs of ba­si­cal­ly be­ing af­fect­ed by the oil spill. There were yel­low leaves on the man­grove." De Ver­teuil said ac­cord­ing to the US NOAA (Na­tion­al Ocean­ic and At­mos­pher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion), yel­low­ing leaves are a sign that the man­grove is be­ing af­fect­ed by oil and the trees are dy­ing.

He said: "I am not at all pleased with the cleanup. We are well in­to a month since the oil spill oc­curred and the man­grove is far from be­ing cleaned. The man­grove clean-up is very time sen­si­tive." De Ver­teuil added that the oil spill im­pact will be "very long-term" on the man­grove, since NOAA says it takes ten to 50 years for man­groves af­fect­ed by oil spills to ful­ly re­cov­er.