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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Marabella residents back home after oil spill clean-up

by

Sascha Wilson
20 days ago
20250703

More than 70 res­i­dents of Bayshore, Mara­bel­la, are fi­nal­ly back home af­ter be­ing evac­u­at­ed last Fri­day due to an oil leak that con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed the riv­er course from Tarou­ba to Mara­bel­la. 

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed, there were no vis­i­ble signs of on­go­ing work. The clean-up crews and equip­ment were gone, and apart from a few small oil de­posits, the riv­er ap­peared most­ly clean. 

Ini­tial­ly, 57 res­i­dents were re­lo­cat­ed to the Roy­al Ho­tel af­ter fumes from the spill forced them out of their homes, but that num­ber in­creased to 76. On Tues­day, they were giv­en the all-clear by of­fi­cials from Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed to re­turn home af­ter air qual­i­ty as­sess­ments showed con­di­tions were safe. Al­though a faint scent still lingers in parts of the neigh­bour­hood, most res­i­dents said they were sat­is­fied with the clean-up and re­lieved to be home.

Poul­try farmer Ri­car­do Singh, his wife, and their two chil­dren were among those forced to leave. 

“We home. We nice to be home. Home is home ... The scent and thing gone, be­cause be­fore it was very high. You couldn’t be around be­cause you feel dizzy be­fore.”

Singh, who rears ducks, said ten of his birds died be­cause of the oil spill. He is one of sev­er­al res­i­dents—in­clud­ing crab catch­ers and fish­er­folk—now wait­ing to be com­pen­sat­ed by the com­pa­ny for their loss­es.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Melis­sa Ali-Ma­haraj, re­called falling ill and be­ing tak­en by the com­pa­ny to a pri­vate health fa­cil­i­ty for treat­ment on Fri­day. She was among the res­i­dents who stayed at the ho­tel dur­ing the evac­u­a­tion. 

“They car­ried the chil­dren to school. They made sure we had meals.”

San Fer­nan­do West Coun­cil­lor John Michael Al­i­bo­cas, who vis­it­ed the res­i­dents, said he was sat­is­fied with the re­sponse and the clean-up work. 

“It is all about pleas­ing the peo­ple, and it is all about love—treat­ing res­i­dents with a lev­el of re­spect and giv­ing them a clean en­vi­ron­ment, mak­ing sure they come back home in­to a safe en­vi­ron­ment,” Al­i­bo­cas said.

Mean­while, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um con­firmed that clean-up ac­tiv­i­ties are com­plete and site restora­tion work is near­ing com­ple­tion. The com­pa­ny al­so said air qual­i­ty lev­els re­main with­in ac­cept­able stan­dards, but added that mon­i­tor­ing will con­tin­ue in the af­fect­ed area. 

The leak was caused by an age­ing 12-inch trunk pipeline at Tarou­ba, which rup­tured and spilt gal­lons of oil in­to the riv­er course. The com­pa­ny as­sured it will con­tin­ue to sup­port af­fect­ed res­i­dents as part of its on­go­ing re­sponse ef­forts.


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