RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Oil spill-af­fect­ed res­i­dents of Mas­sa­hood Junc­tion, Fyz­abad, yes­ter­day ad­mit­ted that some of them built their homes on top of a 16-inch oil pipeline be­cause they be­lieved the line had been con­demned decades ago.

The line rup­tured on Sun­day, spilling thick black crude in­to the Mas­sa­hood com­mu­ni­ty and forc­ing the evac­u­a­tion of 20 res­i­dents who are now ac­com­mo­dat­ed at Paria Suites Ho­tel in La Ro­main.

Ques­tions are now be­ing asked as to why peo­ple built there, who out­fit­ted the hous­es with elec­tric­i­ty and pipe-borne wa­ter and who au­tho­rised con­struc­tion on top of a clear­ly marked dan­ger zone.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene yes­ter­day, the pun­gent smell of hy­dro­car­bons lin­gered in the air. An am­bu­lance re­mained on site while teams clad in or­ange cov­er­alls from Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um con­tin­ued their clean-up works.

The drains sur­round­ing res­i­dents’ homes still had traces of oil. Veg­e­ta­tion was al­so cov­ered with the slick and a back­hoe was seen dig­ging near the rup­tured line where Dar­ren Mo­hammed and his fam­i­ly live.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mo­hammed said his fam­i­ly had been liv­ing on the site for 60 years. Twen­ty-five years ago, they sold their home and then moved next door on­to lands di­rect­ly on top of the 16-inch pipeline.

Mo­hammed said the pipelines had been con­demned and his fam­i­ly saw no dan­ger in liv­ing there. He claimed that Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um was pres­sure test­ing the pipeline and that was what caused rup­tures on Sun­day. He de­nied that his fam­i­ly re­ceived no­tices from Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um to evac­u­ate.

Out­side Mo­hammed’s res­i­dence stood two red “Dan­ger” poles in­di­cat­ing buried pipelines.

Asked why they built on the line when it posed se­ri­ous haz­ards, Mo­hammed re­spond­ed:, “Since I know my­self, it is not on­ly we alone build on the line, there are oth­er peo­ple. The rea­son why we built on the line was be­cause this was a dead line. Since Her­itage take over, they tried to bring back the line.”

Suresh Ram­sun­dar, a land agent, sup­port­ed Mo­hammed’s sto­ry, say­ing he has been liv­ing in Mas­sa­hood for 52 years and al­so be­lieved the line was dead.

“About 30 years back, Petrotrin dig up here and they say they con­demn­ing this line. That was how peo­ple build up here in this area,” Ram­sun­dar ex­plained.

When asked whether peo­ple had per­mis­sion from the au­thor­i­ties to build over a pipeline, Ram­sun­dar said, “I can’t say. When Petrotrin was around and they see peo­ple build­ing on the line, they would come and stop them but since they con­demned the line, peo­ple start­ed to build and no­body ever came to stop them.”

He ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that Her­itage did not give no­tice of pres­sure test­ing.

But re­tired main­te­nance su­per­vi­sor at Petrotrin, Geboud Bhag­wans­ingh, said in 2015, he was in charge of do­ing a thor­ough as­sess­ment of the line. He not­ed, how­ev­er, that the line was nev­er con­demned.

“This was al­ways a live line. I did some test­ing and in­spec­tion of the line which runs from Trin­mar to Pointe-a-Pierre. Part of this line comes from API man­i­fold, we did a GPS and this was a live line,” he ex­plained.

He said Petrotrin was sup­posed to re­lo­cate the line to fa­cil­i­tate the res­i­dents but this nev­er hap­pened. Bhag­wans­ingh re­vealed that Her­itage has nev­er done an ed­u­ca­tion­al cam­paign in­form­ing res­i­dents about the po­ten­tial risks.

Coun­cil­lor for the area, Dood­nath Mayrhoo, mean­while called for the re­lo­ca­tion of res­i­dents. He said di­a­logue was need­ed be­tween Her­itage and res­i­dents, not­ing that the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion should in­ter­vene to ac­com­mo­date the res­i­dents.

Her­itage - Stay off our lines!

Mean­while, Her­itage said the clean-up at Mas­sa­hood Junc­tion is 20 per cent com­plete. The com­pa­ny al­so con­firmed that a dwelling house was il­le­gal­ly con­struct­ed on the com­pa­ny’s pipeline right-of-way and di­rect­ly over an in-ser­vice 16-inch oil pipeline.

This build­ing, Her­itage said, pre­vent­ed rou­tine checks and main­te­nance of the pipeline. It said sev­er­al no­tices had been served to re­move the struc­ture, the lat­est in 2022.

Her­itage said the pipeline right-a-way and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties are clear­ly marked by “Dan­ger” signs which state: “Please avoid these ar­eas, as oil and gas ex­po­sure is dan­ger­ous and pos­es a re­al risk to peo­ple and prop­er­ty.”

The com­pa­ny al­so said there have been no fur­ther leaks to the pipeline.

Her­itage Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cians (EMTs) have been sta­tioned in the com­mu­ni­ty on a 24-hour ba­sis to re­spond to any med­ical is­sues. Air qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing is al­so on­go­ing, while mem­bers of the Her­itage In­ci­dent Man­age­ment Team (IMT) and reg­u­la­tors from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries are mon­i­tor­ing the scene.

Her­itage is al­so urg­ing the pub­lic to re­port any ac­tiv­i­ty re­lat­ed to unau­tho­rised con­struc­tion near or on hy­dro­car­bon pipelines and fa­cil­i­ties, as this may pose a safe­ty risk to the com­mu­ni­ty.