Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an oil leak near Rang­ie Nanan Dri­ve, Tarou­ba, af­ter res­i­dents com­plained of hy­dro­car­bon fumes, while a moth­er and her 12-year-old daugh­ter sought med­ical at­ten­tion af­ter falling ill.

The com­pa­ny yes­ter­day as­sured that clean-up works were be­ing car­ried out as a pri­or­i­ty to re­move any con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed soil from the area, while air qual­i­ty test­ing and mon­i­tor­ing were on­go­ing as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure to en­sure safe lev­els were be­ing main­tained.

In a state­ment, Her­itage said the oil sight­ings were re­port­ed on Thurs­day and com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives en­gaged near­by res­i­dents, keep­ing them in­formed, ad­dress­ing con­cerns and of­fer­ing time­ly sup­port.

The com­pa­ny added that the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI), the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and oth­er rel­e­vant par­ties and reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies had been no­ti­fied and re­mained en­gaged in on­go­ing re­sponse ef­forts.

When CNC3 News vis­it­ed the Rang­ie Nanan Dri­ve com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, the scent was still lin­ger­ing. Res­i­dents said there had been mul­ti­ple leaks over the last few months, but Thurs­day’s in­ci­dent was the worst. They said the com­pa­ny in­di­cat­ed it was re­plac­ing aged lines with new ones. Res­i­dents al­so said the com­pa­ny’s para­medics car­ried out med­ical checks on some res­i­dents.

Dawn Phillip-Rawl­ins, 46, and her 12-year-old daugh­ter, who is await­ing her Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment re­sults, be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing headaches and chest pains and went to a health cen­tre. They were lat­er re­ferred to San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Phillip-Rawl­ins said she was treat­ed and dis­charged af­ter mid­night, but her daugh­ter re­mained at the hos­pi­tal un­til lat­er that morn­ing for ob­ser­va­tion.

Re­call­ing that the scent was un­bear­able, she said, “It start­ed mak­ing us feel sick. You know, chest pain, headache, you know, a strong scent then. And then we went to the health cen­tre, and they say it’s an ir­ri­ta­tion to the chest.”

She said hos­pi­tal staff car­ried out sev­er­al tests and pre­scribed an­tibi­otics.

“They say if we get worse, we come back and try and be out from around where have the oil. But where can I go? Be­cause it’s here I’m liv­ing. I don’t know where I can leave my place to go. So, I had to mon­i­tor my daugh­ter.”

She said so far, nei­ther her son nor her hus­band had been af­fect­ed. She said she had no­ti­fied the com­pa­ny, which of­fered to send her to a pri­vate nurs­ing home, but she opt­ed to go to the hos­pi­tal in­stead.

If the scent per­sists, how­ev­er, Phillip-Rawl­ins said she would ap­pre­ci­ate tem­po­rary re­lo­ca­tion, as she re­mains con­cerned about her health.