Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The oil spill in the Gulf of Paria has caused a short­age of fish and as a re­sult prices are in­creas­ing.At Kings Wharf yes­ter­day, where fish ven­dors com­plained that they were not get­ting their reg­u­lar sup­ply, carite and king­fish were be­ing sold for $50 a pound, while salmon and shark sold for $30 and $20 per pound re­spec­tive­ly.

Fish ven­dor Jack­lyn Fras­er said she usu­al­ly re­ceived 200 pounds of fish per day. Point­ing to an al­most emp­ty crate, she said: "All I got to­day was 50 pounds and it re­al­ly hard to sell be­cause peo­ple not buy­ing fish be­cause of the oil spill."We are frus­trat­ed be­cause we los­ing mon­ey. Gov­ern­ment giv­ing La Brea res­i­dents meals, med­ical aid, com­pen­sa­tion but we have not re­ceived a cent."

Pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Co­op­er­a­tive Sal­im Gool told the Sun­day Guardian more than 150 fish­er­men were af­fect­ed by the oil spill and have been forced to seek al­ter­na­tive ways to earn a liv­ing.The im­pact of the oil spill on the fish­ing in­dus­try could be seen at Ota­heite Fish­ing Bay. There were very few cus­tomers at usu­al­ly bustling fish mar­ket yes­ter­day and ozens of pirogues lined the shore which was lit­tered with the car­cass­es of birds, fish­es and crabs.

"This mar­ket is usu­al­ly filled with peo­ple but no­body buy­ing fish be­cause they afraid of the oil," fish ven­dor Suresh Seep­er­sad said.Point­ing to huge crates filled with fish fil­lets, Seep­er­sad said ven­dors are now salt­ing the un­sold fish to pre­vent them from spoil­ing."We have about 3,000 pounds of fish­es here val­ued over $20,000 that is go­ing to waste. Peo­ple just not com­ing to buy and we los­ing mon­ey," he com­plained

Michael Ram­nath, pres­i­dent of the Ota­heite Fish­ing Co­op­er­a­tive, said Petrotrin had promised to pay $1,200 a day in com­pen­sa­tion to the 85 Ota­heite boat own­ers af­fect­ed by the oil spill but noth­ing for the ven­dors. He wants of­fi­cials of the state-owned en­er­gy com­pa­ny to meet with crab catch­ers and ven­dors to dis­cuss com­pen­sa­tion.

Petrotrin's cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Gillian Fri­day said in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to the cause of the oil spills. Sam­ples have been sent to Hous­ton, Texas, but it may take an­oth­er week and a half be­fore re­sults are avail­able.With re­gard to as­sist­ing peo­ple af­fect­ed by the spill, Fri­day said: "Petrotrin is ex­treme­ly sen­si­tive to, and sup­port­ive of, its fence-line com­mu­ni­ties, the res­i­dents in those com­mu­ni­ties and to the en­vi­ron­ment, in­clu­sive of flo­ra, fau­na and aquat­ic life."

Fri­day said Petrotrin "will do noth­ing to com­pro­mise the oblig­a­tions it has and will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate re­spon­si­bly and pru­dent­ly."