Sascha Wil­son

The dis­cov­ery of an­oth­er dead dol­phin along the south-west­ern coast­line in three weeks has prompt­ed calls for a for­eign in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion.Speak­ing with re­porters at Point Sable beach, La Brea, yes­ter­day where the dol­phin washed ashore, La Brea MP Fitzger­ald Jef­frey said this strength­ens his claim that the tox­ic Corex­it 9500 dis­per­sant used in the re­cent oil spill is re­spon­si­ble for the death of ma­rine life.

Fish­er­man Wayne Hen­ry found the six-foot, 100-pound mam­mal and sev­er­al dead fish on Thurs­day evening. This comes even as the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA), the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) and Petrotrin claimed that tests re­vealed that thou­sands of mul­let fish that washed ashore along the Cof­fee, Point Sable and Carat Shed beach­es over the last two months, were not poi­soned.Jef­frey main­tained, how­ev­er, that there was a ma­jor cov­er-up.

"It (dead dol­phin) con­firms in my mind what I have al­ways said–that Corex­it 9500 is re­spon­si­ble for a lot of fish kill–and I hope they could tell us which trawler drop this one, all the time they say­ing some trawler off­shore dump­ing fish.

"I am call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to let us get an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion not from Trinidad, let the Unit­ed Na­tions send out a team to come down and look at the whole thing be­cause I be­lieve the EMA and IMA are con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed in terms of giv­ing an ob­jec­tive as­s­es­ment of what is hap­pen­ing on Point Sable beach."Fish­er­men who gath­ered at the beach al­so called on the agen­cies to tell the na­tion the truth.

Hen­ry, trea­sur­er of the La Brea Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, said there is no truth to al­le­ga­tions that a south-based ves­sel was dump­ing dead fish in the sea."What­ev­er killing the mul­let, killing the dol­phin. They tell us by word of mouth that we could go back out to sea and give peo­ple fish to eat, but the fish still dy­ing, birds dy­ing."Point­ing to salmon, lynch, bouchet, stone fish and crab, he said all types of ma­rine life were be­ing af­fect­ed.

An­oth­er fish­er­man Ashram Ram­per­sad called for a meet­ing with the EMA, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine and oth­er stake­hold­ers to ad­dress this sit­u­a­tion.He said the dam­age had al­ready been done to the fish­ing in­dus­try and their liveli­hood be­cause no one was buy­ing fish in the area.Of­fi­cials of the Uni­ver­si­ty of West In­dies' School of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine were ex­pect­ed to re­move the dol­phin for test­ing yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, re­sults of a necrop­sy done to de­ter­mine the death of an­oth­er dol­phin which washed ashore three weeks ago at Ves­signy are still out­stand­ing.