ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Near­ly a month since the Gulf­stream barge ran aground off the coast of Cove spew­ing bunker fu­el, of­fi­cials have an­nounced that the leak­ing has stopped.

The ves­sel was first spot­ted on Feb­ru­ary 7 af­ter it sep­a­rat­ed from its tug, lat­er iden­ti­fied as So­lo Creed days be­fore.

Cur­rent­ly, ex­ten­sive sal­vage and con­tain­ment ef­forts are in full swing, with mul­ti­ple ves­sels and or­gan­i­sa­tions—lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al—work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to con­trol the sit­u­a­tion.

While the sal­vage op­er­a­tions are on­go­ing, To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art is hope­ful the strat­e­gy to con­tain and re­move the Gulf­stream barge would work.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence on Mon­day, Stew­art said, “What we have ex­pe­ri­enced over the past 72 hours is the an­swer we have been look­ing for as I can re­port there is no longer any oil emit­ting from the ves­sel. The T&T Sal­vage team has tak­en con­trol over that process of the ves­sel.”

Stew­art said the oil has spread west of Crown Point.

He said the con­tain­ment team was in the process of re­cov­er­ing the re­main­ing vol­umes of bunker fu­el on the sur­face of the wa­ter.

The fo­cus is to con­tain the re­main­ing fu­el and sal­vage the barge while min­imis­ing the im­pact on To­ba­go’s coastal ecosys­tem.

Lead­ing the op­er­a­tion is T&T Sal­vage in part­ner­ship with in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny QT En­vi­ron­men­tal and the tech­ni­cal staff at the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI).

The min­istry in a so­cial me­dia post yes­ter­day showed sev­er­al ves­sels, in­clud­ing the NEC Spir­it, NEC Pi­o­neer, Al­to­ka 7, Lead­er­ship, and the At­lantic Star, ac­tive­ly in­volved in the sal­vage op­er­a­tions off the coast of Cove.

Mean­while, the min­istry has been con­duct­ing reg­u­lar over­flights of the re­sponse area, with the Air Guard un­der the com­mand of Lieu­tenant Groome. Aer­i­al ob­servers from QT En­vi­ron­men­tal and T&T Sal­vage were al­so on­board the Trinidad and To­ba­go Air Guard’s fixed-wing air­craft, the Fairchild C-26B.

This sys­tem will al­low the team to de­tect and re­spond quick­ly to any po­ten­tial spills.

As the con­tain­ment and sal­vage ef­forts con­tin­ue, sup­port is al­so be­ing pro­vid­ed by the Air­port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and Ch­aguara­mas Dock, among oth­ers.

They have been work­ing to de­liv­er crit­i­cal re­sources and equip­ment to To­ba­go.