Grena­da has con­tact­ed the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency and oth­er part­ners, as pos­si­ble oil from the To­ba­go oil spill has en­tered their ma­rine area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

On Wednes­day, new satel­lite da­ta analysed by the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, cap­tured at 5.37 am, in­di­cat­ed the pos­si­ble oil slick hads ex­tend­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 63 nau­ti­cal miles or 118 kilo­me­tres west-north­west of To­ba­go.

The ex­tent of the slick now ex­tends ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 kilo­me­tres out­side Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Eco­nom­ic Ex­clu­sive Zone (EEZ), the ma­rine area for which T&T is re­spon­si­ble. Ac­cord­ing to TEMA, this pos­si­ble oil slick orig­i­nates from the over­turned ves­sel, Gulf­stream, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 me­tres off the south­ern coast of To­ba­go and is near­ly 78 nau­ti­cal miles or 144 kilo­me­tres in length.

TEMA al­so said they have a high con­fi­dence lev­el “at­trib­uted to the known sus­pect­ed point source,” mean­ing the slick comes from the cap­sised ship.

TEMA added, “Vari­a­tions in slick thick­ness were not­ed, and a thin oil-like sub­stance was present in the im­agery. Drone sur­veil­lance and ground truthing were al­so con­duct­ed to in­crease the con­fi­dence lev­el.”

TEMA has re­quest­ed “ad­vanced aer­i­al truthing” to be con­duct­ed via a fly­over by the T&T Air Guard.

Mean­while, Grena­di­ans are al­ready prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of oil ar­riv­ing on their coast­lines.

In a me­dia re­lease, Grena­da’s Na­tion­al Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Agency (NaD­MA) said they have “evoked the tenets of its oil spill haz­ard-spe­cif­ic pro­to­col and con­tact­ed the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), as well as oth­er lo­cal and re­gion­al part­ners to as­sist as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.”

Yes­ter­day, NaD­MA con­vened an emer­gency meet­ing of their Na­tion­al Oil Spill Com­mit­tee, a sub-com­mit­tee of the Na­tion­al Emer­gency Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil, to brief mem­bers and make prepa­ra­tions should any re­sponse arise.

The Grena­da gov­ern­ment is cur­rent­ly in con­tact with T&T’s Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs “to as­cer­tain the ex­tent to which the oil slick is like­ly to af­fect Grena­da.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Grena­da Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell and his press of­fice but got no re­sponse up press time yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, in a brief state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, For­eign and Cari­coms Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said, “The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs con­tin­ues to ful­fil its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in re­sponse to the oil spill, with­in the over­all co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tions of the Gov­ern­ment and oth­er rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties. A com­pre­hen­sive state­ment will be made by the Gov­ern­ment to­mor­row [to­day], which will ad­dress and clar­i­fy the ac­tions that are un­der­way.”

As oil con­tin­ues to flow out of Gulf­stream for the ninth day, fish­ing ves­sels from Scar­bor­ough to Black Rock have re­mained ground­ed.

All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Cur­tis Dou­glas ex­plained that once oil washed up on shore in To­ba­go, he called for a ground­ing of boats in and around ar­eas that had been and po­ten­tial­ly could be af­fect­ed.

He said the oil could dam­age and ad­verse­ly im­pact boats, but for those who fish in the ar­eas where oil moved, “the bar­racu­da, snap­pers and king­fish will be dam­aged”.

“I don’t want any­one to get in­fect­ed, so I ad­vised them to pull their ves­sels up un­til fur­ther no­tice be­cause I don’t want any­one to get sick.”

With many fish­er­folk un­able to ply their trade, Dou­glas said the is­sue of com­pen­sa­tion lies in the hands of the Prime Min­is­ter.

“I think the Prime Min­is­ter has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and own­er­ship to as­sist the fish­er­folk in their need be­cause they have chil­dren to feed, a fam­i­ly to mind. If we pull up, we think there should be some form of help.”

Dou­glas added, “This is a na­tion­al dis­as­ter, and I be­lieve a na­tion­al dis­as­ter means that the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go should do his best to en­sure that fish­er­folks are du­ly com­pen­sat­ed in what­ev­er and how­ev­er, they were af­fect­ed by an in­ci­dent that they have no own­er­ship or re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for.”

To­ba­go’s fish­er­folk have com­plied with the or­der to re­main out of the wa­ter, but Dou­glas said near­ly 30 fish­er­folk are us­ing their boats to as­sist in clean-up ef­forts at sea.