En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) of­fi­cials are ex­pect­ed to meet with a con­trac­tor from Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas in con­nec­tion with waste oil pol­lu­tion in a trib­u­tary to the Ca­paro Riv­er.

EMA’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Hay­den Ro­mano said on Wednes­day they were seek­ing to meet with the con­trac­tor who op­er­ates a main­te­nance garage for trucks close to the trib­u­tary be­fore the end of the week.

When Guardian Me­dia spoke with Sieu­ra­jh Dass, who runs a trans­port com­pa­ny near the trib­u­tary, he de­nied re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Ro­mano said, “It seems to be waste oil from a garage type op­er­a­tion that’s why we sus­pect the most prob­a­ble source is the near­by con­trac­tor main­te­nance garage. We are go­ing to have a meet­ing with the con­trac­tor and it is our hope that at the end of the meet­ing there will be some so­lu­tion to what is go­ing on there.”

Asked if the EMA had ini­ti­at­ed any cleanup op­er­a­tions, Ro­mano said that has not been done be­cause they have not yet es­tab­lished who is re­spon­si­ble for the oil.

He said that the per­son re­spon­si­ble will have to bear the cost of any cleanup op­er­a­tions.

On Tues­day, a truck was sent to pump out some of the oil but there still re­mains a large amount of oil in the trib­u­tary at In­her­i­tance Dri­ve, off Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road.

Oil has been dumped in­to the trib­u­tary over the last two months, re­sult­ing in birds, caimans, plants and var­i­ous types of flo­ra and fau­na be­ing cov­ered in oil.

Tilapia farmer Chris­t­ian Pen­co, who op­er­ates his farm near­by, says he is be­ing af­fect­ed by the sit­u­a­tion with hun­dreds of his fish­es float­ing up dead.

He sus­pects that when the birds land on his fish tanks the oil from their bod­ies would drip in­to the wa­ter and poi­son the fish­es.

Pen­co and Pas­tor Wayne Brown, who runs the near­by In­her­i­tance In­ter­na­tion­al Cen­tre, com­plained that they had made nu­mer­ous re­ports to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties over the last two months but got no re­sponse.

Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea sec­re­tary Gary Aboud has al­so vis­it­ed the scene and met with the af­fect­ed peo­ple.

Aboud up­loaded a video of the thick oil in the trib­u­tary on so­cial me­dia on Wednes­day call­ing on EMA and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to take ac­tion.