To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says he may de­clare the oil spill on the is­land a tier three dis­as­ter by to­day.

Giv­ing an up­date on the clean-up re­sponse yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Au­gus­tine said his team was prepar­ing to of­fi­cial­ly clas­si­fy the sever­i­ty of the in­ci­dent at a high­er lev­el.

“Yes, we are go­ing to move to a Tier Three lev­el. We just need to get some things cleared to­mor­row (to­day) and then that an­nounce­ment will be made, but all in­di­ca­tions are we are head­ing in that di­rec­tion. At this point, we are open to the as­sis­tance of any­where,” Au­gus­tine said.

At tier three, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo will be able to de­clare the in­ci­dent a na­tion­al emer­gency.

In such a sce­nario, the ODPM, through the Min­istries of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, For­eign Af­fairs and Fi­nance, will co-or­di­nate the ac­qui­si­tion of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al aid.

The Unit­ed Na­tions has al­ready reached out to THA of­fi­cials to of­fer as­sis­tance, while clean-up vol­un­teers have in­creased to 1,000.

To­day, spe­cial­ist divers will at­tempt to iso­late the leak from the over­turned ves­sel which led to the oil spill.

He said the cur­rent is al­so push­ing the ves­sel to shore and the THA fears it may cause more dam­age to the reef and even­tu­al­ly reach clos­er to the shore­line.

“So, while we are us­ing booms, they will try to plug the leak and they are be­ing sent by the Mar­itime Di­vi­sion. When they are through with that, then they will send oth­er spe­cial­ists to do the wreck­ing of the ves­sel. They will de­ter­mine the best way to re­move the ves­sel from the site be­cause it can­not stay in that lo­ca­tion.”

Au­gus­tine said 15 kilo­me­tres of coast­line had been af­fect­ed by the spill’s de­posit. The spill start­ed 16 kilo­me­tres off To­ba­go’s coast­line and large corals were bro­ken off on the reef where the ves­sel ini­tial­ly over­turned.

Mean­while, the THA al­so de­cid­ed to can­cel the Ju­nior Pa­rade of the Bands card­ed for Scar­bor­ough. How­ev­er, they are hop­ing the af­fect­ed bands will now join a sim­i­lar ac­tiv­i­ty in Rox­bor­ough.

How­ev­er, a cruise ship ex­pect­ed in on Sun­day with 3,000 tourists will be al­lowed to dock and vis­i­tors will be cau­tioned about the spill.

Au­gus­tine said the THA was al­so con­cerned about the mount­ing costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the oil spill re­sponse.

He said they al­ready had an in­voice for $1 mil­lion, which cov­ers the ex­pens­es for oil ab­sorbent booms, skim­mers, and oth­er equip­ment ser­vice providers have re­quest­ed to be put on a re­tain­er. How­ev­er, he clar­i­fied the in­voice has not yet been signed off on and he is re­view­ing its de­tails.

He said a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the ex­pens­es will be de­ter­mined af­ter the cri­sis has been ad­dressed.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the mount­ing costs, Au­gus­tine as­sured the pub­lic that the ex­pens­es will not be as­tro­nom­i­cal.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter:

Her­itage to as­sist

Fol­low­ing a vis­it to To­ba­go with Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, said a team had been dis­patched to To­ba­go for tech­ni­cal sup­port.

Young said, “We con­tin­ue to of­fer our as­sis­tance and what­ev­er as­sis­tance can be pro­vid­ed. I’ve al­so giv­en the green light for Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um to pro­vide as­sis­tance.

“We have been con­sis­tent­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing with TEMA (To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency). TEMA and the THA have in­di­cat­ed that they are deal­ing with the mat­ter and have the lead…The min­istry team has been work­ing close­ly with the THA and team to­day.”

He said the min­istry is on stand­by to pro­vide any fur­ther as­sis­tance nec­es­sary.

Sinanan told Guardian Me­dia he will be re­turn­ing to the is­land next week for an­oth­er in-per­son as­sess­ment and dis­cus­sions with the THA.

Mean­while, To­ba­go Band­lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Di­anne Mc­Crim­mon yes­ter­day called on her mem­bers to be le­nient af­ter sev­er­al of them ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion be­cause they were not giv­en the op­tion to choose an al­ter­na­tive route in Scar­bor­ough.

“At the end of the day, even though I’m rep­re­sent­ing bands, I still have to put peo­ple’s chil­dren first, and if the Chief (Sec­re­tary) says so, then I have to go with what the Chief Sec­re­tary says.”

The To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion said none of its mem­bers had been af­fect­ed.

“More than any­thing else, we un­der­stand that this can have a ma­jor so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­pact for To­ba­go and the tourism in­dus­try. As an as­so­ci­a­tion, we are stand­ing by to pro­vide as much as­sis­tance as we can pos­si­bly pro­vide,” the TH­TA said.

Oil sam­ples in IMA hands

At yes­ter­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence, Ge­o­graph­ic In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem spe­cial­ist Dayre­on Mitchel an­nounced that oil sam­ples from the ves­sel, whose ori­gin is still un­known, were sent to Trinidad and the re­sults should be re­turned to To­ba­go soon.

He said, “The IMA (In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs) would have re­ceived the sam­ples that we would have col­lect­ed, and the test­ing would be con­duct­ed dur­ing the course of next week. They will be con­tin­u­ous­ly test­ing it, and they will be giv­ing us a re­port by the end of that week.”

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, in a re­lease yes­ter­day, al­so said she was deeply con­cerned about the oil spill and its im­pact on To­ba­go’s nat­ur­al re­sources.

Her main con­cern is the dam­age that may have been done to ecosys­tems such as Cove Reef and Fly­ing Reef, as well as oth­er sen­si­tive ar­eas in Kil­gwyn Bay, Ca­noe Bay, Pe­tit Trou La­goon, Rock­ley Bay, Lit­tle Rock­ley Bay and Topaz Beach.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed the oil is start­ing to blan­ket one of the is­land’s largest and most pro­tect­ed man­grove sites be­hind the Magde­le­na Ho­tel.

Beck­les-Robin­son said the EMA and IMA had sup­port­ed the pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ment along the coast­line, and that sam­ples were col­lect­ed by the IMA for analy­sis.