RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A sec­ond con­tain­ment pond has been dug to stop the spread of an oil slick which has dis­turbed plant and aquat­ic life in the pro­tect­ed man­groves of the South Oropouche swamp.

But with the threat of rain­fall, en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivists are brac­ing for fur­ther dam­age in­land as the oil spreads from the man­groves to the Duck Pond re­gion in Wood­land.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group Ed­ward Mood­ie called on the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty to charge Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um for en­vi­ron­men­tal breach­es.

He said it was not true that the com­pa­ny had achieved 90 per cent con­tain­ment of the oil.

“To­day they brought in a big­ger ex­ca­va­tor. The sec­ond con­tain­ment pond was dug be­fore to bring back the oil which was spilt. Right now our ma­jor con­cern is the weath­er. If the rain falls heavy the oil will float and fur­ther con­t­a­m­i­nate the la­goon,” Mood­ie said.

Drone footage, he says, shows the oil a mere 200 feet away from the Duck Pond Riv­er, which drains in­to the St John’s Riv­er in Fyz­abad. Duck Pond Riv­er runs par­al­lel to the New Cut Chan­nel and is the on­ly fresh­wa­ter riv­er used by live­stock farm­ers.

Mood­ie said even though there was 24-hour mon­i­tor­ing of the first con­tain­ment pond, the oil man­aged to flow out from the first con­tain­ment pool.

“Now they have dug a sec­ond pool at the side of the first one to get the oil spill to flow back. The soil and veg­e­ta­tion are con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. Veg­e­ta­tion should be re­moved and ab­sorbent ma­te­r­i­al should be placed and con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed soil should be re­moved but this is not hap­pen­ing. Her­itage can­not leave this up to na­ture to clean,” Mood­ie said.

He said the tide had pushed back the oil rem­nants on­to the banks of the riv­er.

“The con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed leaves were picked off from the site but the soil was nev­er treat­ed,” Mood­ie said.

He ex­pressed re­lief that thou­sands of new roots were shoot­ing up from the man­groves.

Her­itage re­sponds

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Her­itage said oil spill re­sponse op­er­a­tions were con­tin­u­ing in the Gordineau Riv­er in Wood­land.

“Af­ter cut­ting the high grass and shrubs we dis­cov­ered a swampy area where the wa­ter was cov­ered by a light oil sheen. Im­me­di­ate ac­tions were tak­en to treat with this is­sue. It is pos­si­ble that oth­er sur­round­ing ar­eas may be sim­i­lar­ly im­pact­ed, and the Com­pa­ny is mak­ing every ef­fort to swift­ly iden­ti­fy and ad­dress these ar­eas, to min­i­mize the im­pact on the com­mu­ni­ty and the en­vi­ron­ment,” Her­itage said.

The com­pa­ny said it was not a new spill.

The com­pa­ny said it had en­gaged in iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, ver­i­fi­ca­tion and as­so­ci­at­ed in­fra­struc­tur­al and re­pair works in the vicin­i­ty of the spill.

“The 16” pipeline was im­me­di­ate­ly iso­lat­ed, flushed and is cur­rent­ly free of hy­dro­car­bon, both North and South of the Godineau Riv­er. Crit­i­cal ac­cess­way was cleared for all nec­es­sary equip­ment to gain ac­cess to the af­fect­ed area to ef­fect clean-up and re­pair works to the pre­vi­ous­ly in­ac­ces­si­ble in­land ar­eas. All out­stand­ing clean-up, main­te­nance and re­pair works are cur­rent­ly on­go­ing now that prop­er ac­cess is avail­able to ef­fec­tive­ly progress works,” the com­pa­ny added.

Her­itage said the clean-up and re­me­di­a­tion of the wa­ter­course were 90 per cent com­plete.

EMA says

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty says it is ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing the oil spill in the Oropouche La­goon.

Re­spond­ing to calls for Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um to be charged for en­vi­ron­men­tal breach­es, the EMA said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was cur­rent­ly un­der­way.

In an email sent to Guardian Me­dia in re­sponse to ques­tions posed, the EMA said, it “con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the re­sponse plan un­der­tak­en by Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um in the af­ter­math of the oil spill in Wood­land. In the EMA’s co-or­di­nat­ing role, there is an ac­tive li­ai­son with oth­er rel­e­vant Gov­ern­ment agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs, on the steps tak­en to ad­dress this spill in­ci­dent, as well as in the con­duct of col­lab­o­ra­tive site in­spec­tions,” the Au­thor­i­ty said.

The EMA al­so re­vealed it has con­duct­ed rou­tine vis­its to the in­ci­dent site and con­tin­ues to re­ceive reg­u­lar re­ports from the In­ci­dent Man­age­ment Team, es­tab­lished un­der the Na­tion­al Oil Spill Con­tin­gency Plan.

“Un­til Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um com­pletes its clean-up and con­tain­ment, the EMA will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the in­ci­dent man­age­ment on-site and will con­tin­ue to co­or­di­nate with all rel­e­vant agen­cies and stake­hold­ers in­volved.”

Asked whether there were any en­vi­ron­men­tal breach­es as it re­lates to the ac­tu­al cleanup, the EMA said, “At this time, the EMA has to re­ceive and com­pile all re­ports on the man­age­ment of the in­ci­dent. We will not spec­u­late with­out the con­duct of com­plet­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions and in­for­ma­tion.”