Part 2

The an­nu­al fish kills we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in La Brea par­al­lels the on­go­ing dis­as­ter that is the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon oil spill which oc­curred in the Gulf of Mex­i­co in 2010.

On April 19, 2013, the Gov­ern­ment Ac­count­abil­i­ty Project (GAP) in the US re­leased a re­port which de­tailed long-term ef­fects on hu­man and ecosys­tem health in the Gulf of Mex­i­co due to the ex­ten­sive use of Corex­it. Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­quests filed by var­i­ous en­vi­ron­men­tal watch­dog groups in the US have re­vealed that Corex­it con­tains chem­i­cals as­so­ci­at­ed with a range of dis­eases and dis­or­ders in­clud­ing can­cer.

Not on­ly does Corex­it in­crease the tox­i­c­i­ty of oil, but the mix­ture of Corex­it and oil is eas­i­ly ab­sorbed by aquat­ic life and hu­man skin. Over time these tox­ins bioac­cu­mu­late (they be­come more con­cen­trat­ed as they move up the food chain), from plank­ton to fish, and even­tu­al­ly to hu­mans and their new­born ba­bies.

Ac­cord­ing to GAP, "ev­i­dence sug­gests that the cleanup ef­fort has been more de­struc­tive to hu­man health and the en­vi­ron­ment than the spill it­self." Some for­mu­la­tions of Corex­it have even been banned in the Unit­ed King­dom.

In re­sponse to the 2010 Deep Wa­ter Hori­zon oil spill, Gi­na Solomon, a se­nior sci­en­tist for the Nat­ur­al Re­sources De­fense Coun­cil in the US, ad­vised that "there's a crit­i­cal need for on­go­ing test­ing in the com­ing months or years to as­sure that the seafood is not on­ly safe now, but stays safe."

Many of the dead or dy­ing fish wash­ing up on our shores have le­sions un­der their scales. Have the EMA and the IMA de­ter­mined the ex­tent to which these chem­i­cal dis­per­sants have ac­cu­mu­lat­ed in the tis­sue of fish and oth­er aquat­ic life in the Gulf of Paria, or in the bod­ies of bare­foot­ed beach go­ers or swim­mers in this area?

What are the im­pli­ca­tions for hu­man health when this seafood is con­sumed? Have the EMA, the IMA and the Min­istry of Health made pro­vi­sions in their tests for pop­u­la­tions with high­er rates of seafood con­sump­tion and vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions such as chil­dren, preg­nant women and the el­der­ly?

Can our Gov­ern­ment con­firm that there is no resid­ual Corex­it that might im­pact the in­take wa­ter qual­i­ty of the Point Fortin De­sali­na­tion Plant? If not, what are the im­pli­ca­tions of can­cer-caus­ing sub­stances be­ing dis­trib­uted to the un­sus­pect­ing com­mu­ni­ties of Erin, Ben­nett Vil­lage and en­vi­rons, Quar­ry, Pa­lo Seco, Techi­er, San­ta Flo­ra, Siparia and Fyz­abad through their wa­ter sup­ply?

Have any tox­i­co­log­i­cal analy­ses, health haz­ard eval­u­a­tions or long-term med­ical sur­veil­lance been done? If so, we de­mand that our Gov­ern­ment pro­vide these re­sults.

FFOS is call­ing for the IMA and the EMA to stop play­ing pol­i­tics with Petrotrin's "Red Zone." Our lead­ers must show good­will and take a holis­tic ap­proach; hu­man health is at stake.

Ter­rence Bed­doe, Pres­i­dent,

Gary Aboud, Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary,

FFOS