sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The iron grave­yard of derelict ships in the Gulf of Paria is in­creas­ing and fish­er­men are now call­ing on the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion.

The ships are vis­i­ble from the shore and over 40 aban­doned ships have been iden­ti­fied off the west coast of Trinidad.

The wreck­age stretch­es from Ce­dros to Ch­aguara­mas and al­though they are a haven for birds, the aban­doned ships dam­age the en­vi­ron­ment with seep­ages of oil and fu­el in­to the sea.

Fish­er­men David Seecha­ran said they were fac­ing ex­ten­sive dam­age be­cause of the wrecks.

“Peo­ple are mash­ing up their en­gines here and it not easy for us. We need some kind of light­ed mark­er to show up where the wrecks are. Boat and en­gines are ex­pen­sive and it not easy to face this kind of loss,” he said.

Fishermen David Seecharan speaks about the shipwreck at sea that is damaging pirogues at Kings Wharf, San Fernando.

Rishi Ragoonath

He added, “When the tide is low you can see the wrecks but when the tide is high you can’t see noth­ing. This is why we need some kind of light­ed mark­ers.”

Seecha­ran said re­ports have been made in the past by var­i­ous fish­ing co­op­er­a­tives.

“We fed up talk­ing about this, plen­ty time we talk. Boats come here, they park up here, sink and re­main in the sea, caus­ing hav­oc. Some­times we car­ry peo­ple out to fish and when we com­ing in we can­not even see the wrecks. These wrecks are caus­ing hav­oc,” Seecha­ran said.

He not­ed that fish­er­men were al­ready fac­ing a loss of in­come be­cause of COVID-19 and the dam­ages caused by the wrecks were mak­ing it worse.

Mean­while, chair­man of the San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Co­op­er­a­tive Sal­im Gool said over the past few years big com­pa­nies em­ployed in the oil and gas in­dus­try aban­don their big tug boats.

“When the life of the tug­boat has end­ed, they drop an an­chor and leave the boat right there. Af­ter some years, the boat sinks and stays right there and it be­comes a haz­ard for the fish­er­men,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to the pro­vi­sions of the Ship­ping Act, ships that are kept long term in T&T wa­ters are ex­pect­ed to be well lit, main­tained and manned and should not pose a haz­ard in terms of nav­i­ga­tion.

Fisherman at Kings Wharf, San Fernando, on Friday.

Rishi Ragoonath

The own­ers are man­dat­ed to abide by Sec­tion 334 of the Ship­ping Act to abide by these reg­u­la­tions or face the re­moval of the ves­sels. The Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion is the body that is re­spon­si­ble for pol­lu­tion caused by ves­sels, wrecks and aban­doned ships but over the years lit­tle has been done to clear the west coast of these eye­sores.