Rem­nants of thick black crude oil from near­by oil wells have af­fect­ed homes and busi­ness­es in the Pe­nal area, days af­ter dev­as­tat­ing flood­wa­ters sub­sided.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ster­ling Per­sad, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Ramkal’s Roof­ing, sit­u­at­ed at Kat­wa­roo Trace, said he was con­tem­plat­ing le­gal ac­tion against Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um for loss­es.

He said the crude which washed down in the swirling floods had cov­ered heaps of steel, lum­ber and fenc­ing stocks from his ware­house.

“I lost a lot in these floods and this oil made things worse,” Per­sad said. He added that he had not yet cal­cu­lat­ed his loss­es.

Claim­ing the oil came from a Her­itage well lo­cat­ed about 20 feet from his ware­house, Per­sad said he was con­vinced that poor main­te­nance of the well was re­spon­si­ble for the spill.

“The oil came down in the floods. All the plants in my trough have died. There is oil on the walls and it is stuck on the fence. There are a few oil wells here and there is not enough main­te­nance of these wells,” Per­sad said.

He ex­plained that of­fi­cials of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um vis­it­ed the res­i­dents but no com­pen­sa­tion was forth­com­ing.

“I will be speak­ing to my lawyers be­cause if those wells were be­ing main­tained, this would not have hap­pened,” Per­sad con­tend­ed.

He not­ed that his fac­to­ry was closed for six days due to floods which took five days to sub­side.

Oth­er res­i­dents of Kat­wa­roo Trace al­so ex­pe­ri­enced sim­i­lar dam­ages and are call­ing on Her­itage to pro­vide some as­sis­tance.

At San Fer­nan­do Street, oil is al­so flow­ing. 

Own­er of Vi­sioneer Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed Ar­den O’Gar­row said he has re­port­ed the oil spill for sev­er­al years and noth­ing has been done to rec­ti­fy it.

“The weath­er con­di­tions on­ly wors­en the prob­lem. When the sun is out the tar be­comes soft and at­tach­es to any­thing that comes in­to con­tact with it. When rain falls the street be­comes a vir­tu­al ob­sta­cle course and the wa­ter de­posits the tar across the en­tire road­way,” he said.

O’ Gar­row called on Min­istry of En­er­gy to do tests in the area to de­ter­mine the ori­gin of the spill.

An email was sent to Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um for com­ment but up to press time, no re­sponse was forth­com­ing.