SASCHA WIL­SON

Crude oil de­posits have been wash­ing ashore in an area known as Red Brick in Ce­dros over the past few days, and Ce­dros Coun­cil­lor, Shankar Teelucks­ingh, says he is con­cerned about the ad­verse im­pact it would have on ma­rine life and peo­ple’s liveli­hoods.

Coun­cil­lor Teelucks­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that be­tween Thurs­day 3rd and Fri­day 4th March 2022, crab catch­ers and fish­er­men no­ticed some residue of oil, to­geth­er with can­sorb—a chem­i­cal used in the clean-up of oil spills—on­shore be­tween Granville beach and St Ann’s Bay, stretch­ing for about a half mile.  He said the beach­es are in a re­mote area with no road ac­cess.

Teelucks­ingh said the fish­er­folk con­tact­ed him and he im­me­di­ate­ly gave the in­for­ma­tion to Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd for the com­pa­ny to ini­ti­ate clean-up op­er­a­tions and pin­point the source of the oil.  He said Her­itage dis­patched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion team and a sam­ple was tak­en for fin­ger­print­ing to pin­point the source, as there were no re­port­ed leaks in the com­pa­ny’s fields.

“A con­trac­tor was no­ti­fied to do the clean-up op­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, we haven’t seen that clean-up op­er­a­tion com­mence yet, so that crude oil, I think, is be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed with­in that area where there is a lot of shell­fish and oth­er ma­rine life re­side in what we call the Red Point,” he ex­plained.

“There is a reef run­ning out in that area. A lot of peo­ple who catch crabs and conch and so on, make that liv­ing on a dai­ly ba­sis. We don’t know the ef­fects of what it will do to the ma­rine life. That is some­thing we con­tin­ue to suf­fer from the oil com­pa­nies with­in the past and up to now,” he said.

How­ev­er, he ex­pressed con­cern with the re­sponse time from the oil com­pa­ny and the Min­istry of En­er­gy, de­scrib­ing it as “alarm­ing”.

Teelucks­ingh said Her­itage has in­di­cat­ed that if the oil does not be­long to them then it falls un­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Min­istry.

“Since they closed Petrotrin what we con­tin­ue to see is when these oil spills oc­cur, some­times it is not re­port­ed and some­times there is no re­sponse to the ur­gency of clean­ing up the en­vi­ron­ment and try­ing to make back the en­vi­ron­ment user friend­ly for the peo­ple who use it on a dai­ly ba­sis,” he said.

For­mer Petrotrin work­er, Tony Be­dassie, told Guardian Me­dia the spill is about a mile away from the main Granville beach. Be­dassie, who fre­quents that area to catch crab and conchs for recre­ation, said:

"It was ter­ri­ble day be­fore yes­ter­day, and I ask a guy who went down yes­ter­day, and he said the tar was on the shore and the tide took it back out.  So, the tide would have de­posit­ed it some­where else so it may go low­er down the coast."  

Ac­cord­ing to Be­dassie, a lot of vil­lagers fish, catch crab and conch in that are, but since the oil de­posits sur­faced there has been an ab­sence of ma­rine life.

"This area is lit­tered with tar—black fine stuff all over—and that will cause de­struc­tion to shell­fish and oth­er ma­rine life. You not even catch­ing a fish," he com­plained.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Her­itage and is await­ing a re­sponse.

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This is a de­vel­op­ing sto­ry and Guardian Me­dia will up­date it as de­tails be­come avail­able.