RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris is urg­ing Pleas­antville res­i­dents to stop burn­ing garbage along the fence line of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um fol­low­ing an oil spill that forced the clo­sure of San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School this week.

Clean-up crews re­mained on site yes­ter­day, clear­ing the spill from a trunk pipeline lo­cat­ed on the school’s com­pound, as wor­ried par­ents and res­i­dents ques­tioned the safe­ty of chil­dren and staff.

Par­ris said the pres­ence of crude oil pipelines run­ning through the com­mu­ni­ty has been a con­cern for more than a decade, not­ing that the lines pass not on­ly through the school com­pound but al­so near the vil­lage plaza.

“The com­mu­ni­ty had a table­top ex­er­cise with Petrotrin 16 years ago, where all res­i­dents were in­formed and warned of the dan­gers of the crude oil line in the com­mu­ni­ty. Muster points were es­tab­lished, and a large map show­ing where the crude oil lines run was post­ed in the Vil­lage Plaza,” he said.

The may­or, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as coun­cil­lor for Pleas­antville, said he has per­son­al­ly in­ter­vened in the past when res­i­dents burned garbage along the fence line.

“As coun­cil­lor for Pleas­antville, I have had to run out of my dis­trict of­fice when I saw res­i­dents burn­ing garbage along the fence line and warn them about the dan­gers of what they were do­ing,” he said.

Par­ris stressed that the pipelines ex­ist­ed be­fore both planned and un­planned de­vel­op­ments in the area and re­mind­ed res­i­dents that they had pre­vi­ous­ly been asked to re­move il­le­gal struc­tures along the Cir­cu­lar Left sec­tion of Pleas­antville.

“This is the sec­ond hy­dro­car­bon leak in Pleas­antville in the last two years, and res­i­dents ought to re­mem­ber the im­por­tance of com­ply­ing with Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um’s safe­ty re­quire­ments,” he added.

Res­i­dents said they are un­easy.

Sta­cy Archibald, who lives near the school, said she is deeply con­cerned about the prox­im­i­ty of the oil line.

“I live in this area, and I’m very con­cerned be­cause the oil line is run­ning straight to the school,” she said. “We have young chil­dren go­ing there every day, and we don’t know about these things, so it is very dan­ger­ous.”

Archibald not­ed that homes and a plaza are lo­cat­ed close to the af­fect­ed area, in­creas­ing the risk to the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

“There are hous­es close by and chil­dren walk­ing all over. It is very dan­ger­ous, and I’m very con­cerned. We don’t know what the next de­vel­op­ment will mean for us be­cause chil­dren will be miss­ing school. There will be a loss of ed­u­ca­tion. We want to know what’s go­ing on,” she added.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Sher­ry Del­con, who lives op­po­site the school along Ma­hogany Av­enue, said she was un­sure why class­es were sus­pend­ed.

“I have a niece go­ing to school here, but I saw there was no school to­day. I don’t know why. I heard they said there was an oil leak, so I don’t know what’s go­ing on,” she said.

Del­con said she first no­ticed signs of the leak a few days ago, but had not been told when class­es would re­sume.

“They didn’t say when school will re­open,” she said. “I think it is some­thing se­ri­ous, and they need to ad­dress it very soon. That’s a haz­ard for the chil­dren go­ing to school there. It is very se­ri­ous.”

In a state­ment, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd con­firmed it re­spond­ed to the leak and said the school was closed in the in­ter­est of safe­ty.

The com­pa­ny said it is work­ing close­ly with rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to ad­dress the mat­ter prompt­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly, adding, “The safe­ty and well-be­ing of stu­dents, staff, and the wider com­mu­ni­ty re­main our high­est pri­or­i­ty.”