Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Fam­i­lies from Chatham had to be evac­u­at­ed from their homes last evening, af­ter the oil spill which had been wreak­ing hav­oc in La Brea reached their doorsteps.An en­tire nine-mile stretch of the shore­line, span­ning the Cof­fee Beach/Car­rat Shed Beach ar­eas in La Brea, has been caked in oil.The T&T Guardian was in­formed that Petrotrin had re­moved sev­er­al Chatham fam­i­lies af­ter chil­dren and women be­gan com­plain­ing of feel­ing un­well when oil be­gan wash­ing ashore at Granville.

In a re­lease last evening, the state-run oil com­pa­ny said there were in fact four sep­a­rate oil leaks this week and it was still un­clear where the oil from the spill at La Brea had orig­i­nat­ed. The com­pa­ny added that it was now con­cerned about the "fre­quen­cy" of the in­ci­dents. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched in­to the oil spills.Since the oil be­gan wash­ing ashore at La Brea, 25 peo­ple have been treat­ed at hos­pi­tal. Of the 25, one had to be pro­vid­ed with fur­ther care.

Yes­ter­day, a Chatham res­i­dent told the Guardian that Petrotrin be­gan evac­u­at­ing res­i­dents along Granville Beach last evening af­ter the nau­se­at­ing smell of the oil, which was wash­ing ashore, be­gan mak­ing them feel ill.Der­sh­win De Gannes, 35, of Granville, ex­pressed con­cern for the health of his un­born ba­by af­ter his one-month-preg­nant wife Sher­rise In­dars­ingh, 19, be­gan vom­it­ing mo­ments af­ter she went out­side their house, which is mere steps away from the beach.

He said he sent In­dars­ingh to the area's health cen­tre for a check-up and when he checked his two daugh­ters, Dil­lian, five, and Shen­nice, three, they were both vom­it­ing."The place smelling oily. She (In­dars­ingh) come out and she start­ed to vom­it im­me­di­ate­ly. She leave and gone by the clin­ic af­ter she start to vom­it. I come out­side and the smell was stronger. I find the two chil­dren vom­it­ing too," he said.

De Gannes said he bathed the chil­dren and put them in an en­closed room and turned on a fan to keep the smell away. He said the con­di­tions caused by the oil, which start­ed wash­ing ashore on Thurs­day, wors­ened yes­ter­day. "There was plen­ty oil," he said."We can­not walk on the sand."Petrotrin is not han­dling this at all. It have oth­er hous­es in the back here that is be­ing af­fect­ed. They do not un­der­stand how to deal with it. I am very con­cerned for her safe­ty. When it come to my chil­dren I do not like here at all."

Last evening, De Gannes and the rest of his fam­i­ly was tak­en to Lake As­phalt med­ical fa­cil­i­ty for treat­ment af­ter they fell ill. Their neigh­bour Naaila Ali, 27, and her two daugh­ters, were al­so tak­en for med­ical treat­ment af­ter they com­plained of feel­ing sick.Pools of oil were seen rolling on the waves to­wards the shore while clean-up crews from Har­ristruct con­trac­tors scraped oil from the sur­face of the sand at Granville when the Guardian vis­it­ed yes­ter­day.

De­spite ef­forts over the past three days, Petrotrin has failed to con­tain the spill at La Brea. Yes­ter­day, the spill ap­peared to have wors­ened with the ris­ing tides.The spills at Pointe-a-Pierre, Ris­er Plat­form 5 and Plat­form 17 in Trin­mar, while linked to the com­pa­ny's op­er­a­tions, were suc­cess­ful­ly con­tained, Petrotrin said. The clean-up ex­er­cise is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in those ar­eas with­in 24 hours, it added.

Petrotrin re­sponds:

Petrotrin said while the source of the spill in La Brea was still un­de­ter­mined, it had mo­bilised all avail­able re­sources to man­age the spill re­sponse ef­forts.The com­pa­ny said trained coun­sel­lors from Petrotrin Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme Ser­vices Ltd were al­so made avail­able to res­i­dents and it is ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of tem­porar­i­ly re­lo­cat­ing the af­fect­ed res­i­dents with the lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the area.

The leaks

Petrotrin, in its re­lease, ex­plained that on Tues­day, a weld leak de­vel­oped on the No 10 Sea Line at the Pointe-a-Pierre port dur­ing fu­el oil bunker load­ing op­er­a­tions for the barge Mara­bel­la. Lat­er that same day, a gas­ket on a 16-inch line on Ris­er Plat­form 5 in Trin­mar's Main Field leaked and oil spilled in­to the sea.

On Wednes­day, Petrotrin re­ceived re­ports of oil at the Cof­fee Beach/Car­rat Shed Beach ar­eas in La Brea, af­fect­ing the beach and fish­ing ves­sels. And on Thurs­day, an oil leak was re­port­ed in the area of Plat­form 17 in Petrotrin's Trin­mar Op­er­a­tions East Field.

"Sur­veil­lance ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed by air and sea have not es­tab­lished a con­nec­tion among the four in­ci­dents," Petrotrin said.

"Pre­lim­i­nary lab­o­ra­to­ry tests con­duct­ed on sam­ples of oil tak­en from the spill in the La Brea area sug­gest that this spill did not orig­i­nate from Pointe-a-Pierre or Ris­er Plat­form 5 and Plat­form 17 in the Trin­mar area."As a re­sult, Petrotrin said, the source of the oil from the La Brea spill was still un­de­ter­mined.