RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Oil con­tain­ment booms have been placed along the Liz­zard and Pi­lote Rivers, in Guayagua­yare, fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day’s oil spill at the Guayagua­yare Oil­fields, Ma­yaro.

Booms spat­tered with oil were seen at the side of the Guayagua­yare Main Road when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area on Mon­day. There was no ev­i­dence of it reach­ing the sea.

In an in­ter­view, MP Rush­ton Paray called on Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um to in­spect its in­fra­struc­ture and re­place its age­ing lines.

The 10-inch trunk pipeline de­vel­oped a leak caus­ing thick crude oil to spill in­to a trib­u­tary which con­nects to the Pi­lote Riv­er in Guayagua­yare.

The area where the leak oc­curred is about two kilo­me­tres in­to the for­est to the back of Fer­ri­er Cir­cu­lar in Guayagua­yare.

The line has al­ready been clamped but a pool of oil re­mains.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Paray said he was con­cerned that if rain fell and the oil is not mopped up ex­pe­di­tious­ly, it could spread down­stream and cause prob­lems for res­i­dents who live near the Sea­wall.

Paray said this is the sec­ond leak which de­vel­oped in re­cent times as an­oth­er spill was re­port­ed in Ju­ly last year.

He said so far the oil spill pos­es no di­rect im­pact on com­mu­ni­ties but he called on Her­itage to work swift­ly to clean up the area.

“Overnight, I un­der­stand Her­itage re­spond­ed. The spill is not large but is of con­cern be­cause of the prox­im­i­ty to the riv­er,” Paray said.

He ex­plained that the is­sue of the in­tegri­ty of as­sets that fall un­der Her­itage and Paria has been raised in Par­lia­ment.

“We are con­cerned about their abil­i­ty to man­age age­ing in­fra­struc­ture and their as­sets in terms of health and safe­ty,” Paray said.

He added: “We do not want for book­keep­ing pur­pos­es these com­pa­nies are re­port­ing huge prof­its but then they’re not spend­ing mon­ey on safe­ty.”

He said sev­er­al years ago, there was one van and four fire ex­tin­guish­ers for the Guayaguare oil­field and no fire truck, but that is­sue was lat­er re­solved. 

“We are hop­ing that they are not cut­ting cor­ners when it comes to main­te­nance, the in­tegri­ty of pipelines and the in­tegri­ty of farms. That is the con­cern to us and it is a red flag we are rais­ing,” Paray said.

In a state­ment, Her­itage con­firmed it has clamped the leak­ing line. It not­ed that the iden­ti­fied leak was not close to any pop­u­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties so there was no di­rect im­pact.

“Her­itage’s Oil Spill Re­sponse Team im­me­di­ate­ly mo­bilised re­sources for con­tain­ment and re­cov­ery of the spilt hy­dro­car­bons, and com­mence­ment of restora­tion of the im­pact­ed area. Wildlife sur­veil­lance and res­cue crews were al­so de­ployed to sur­vey and as­sess the area,” the state­ment said.

In keep­ing with its oil spill re­sponse pro­to­cols, Her­itage said: “it al­so con­tin­ues to un­der­take in­ter­mit­tent air qual­i­ty test­ing with­in the af­fect­ed area.”

So far the lev­els con­tin­ue to read with­in ac­cept­able pa­ra­me­ters, the com­pa­ny added.

Both the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) are in­formed of the oil spill and Her­itage said it will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the in­ci­dent.