Kali­fa Clyne

Mem­bers of the Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of the Gulf of Paria yes­ter­day ac­cused state-owned Petrotrin of with­hold­ing per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion from the pub­lic re­gard­ing re­cent oil spills along the south­west­ern penin­su­la.The group al­so called on Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona to in­ter­vene to re­veal the "re­al ef­fect" of the oil spills on hu­man and ma­rine life and to de­clare a state of emer­gency in the Gulf of Paria.On De­cem­ber 17, the first of 11 Petrotrin oil leaks was dis­cov­ered.

The leaks al­lowed over 1,200 bar­rels of oil to flow in­to the sea, ac­cord­ing to fig­ures giv­en by Petrotrin, black­en­ing shore lines along the coast and threat­en­ing the liveli­hood of fish­er­men, as well as the health of res­i­dents.In a press con­fer­ence 14 days af­ter the first spill, Petrotrin, which con­tract­ed in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts Oil Spill Re­sponse Ltd, said the spills were un­der con­trol.Petrotrin pres­i­dent Khalid Has­sanali al­so said Thurs­day the spills could be a re­sult of hu­man in­ter­fer­ence.

At a press con­fer­ence at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fish­ing in­dus­try said Petrotrin was keep­ing in­for­ma­tion from fish­er­men and the na­tion on the oil spills.The group in­clud­ed Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea sec­re­tary Gary Aboud, pres­i­dent of the La Brea Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion Alvin La Bor­de and en­vi­ron­ment en­gi­neer Cathal Healy-Singh,"Where are the air qual­i­ty re­ports? Where are the tox­i­col­o­gy re­ports? Where are the in­de­pen­dent bod­ies ver­i­fy­ing Petrotrin's in­for­ma­tion?" asked Aboud.

The group called on Pres­i­dent Car­mona to in­ter­vene as it said gov­ern­ment agen­cies had failed them.Pres­i­dent of the Co­corite Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, Di­ane Chris­t­ian-Sim­mons, raised the ques­tion of the si­lence from key agen­cies, such as the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA).The EMA, which mon­i­tored the clean-up ex­er­cise, said three days ago it would serve Petrotrin with a no­tice of non-com­pli­ance with en­vi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions. The no­tice had not been served up to yes­ter­day.

The IMA's re­sponse fo­cused on the source of the oil spills and de­ter­mined that the oil was a Bunker C type fu­el and not crude oil."All gov­ern­ment agen­cies have failed us. We are call­ing on our Head of State to in­ter­vene and save us," said Chris­t­ian-Sim­mons yes­ter­day.

Aboud raised the is­sue of the health risks, say­ing peo­ple in south Trinidad were now afraid to buy fish."Our cit­i­zens of T&T are eat­ing from the Gulf of Paria. What is to be­come of the qual­i­ty of the fish we are serv­ing our cit­i­zens?" he asked.

De­spite a low con­sump­tion of fish in south Trinidad, fish­er­men said yes­ter­day the price of fish was ris­ing. That, they said, was be­cause of the oil spills and the start of a seis­mic sur­vey. The group al­so re­it­er­at­ed calls to post­pone the seis­mic sur­vey, which is be­ing done to de­ter­mine the lo­ca­tion and size of oil and gas re­serves.Has­sanali re­fused to com­ment on yes­ter­day's press con­fer­ence but said if Petrotrin had dis­cov­ered a prob­lem with air qual­i­ty, the com­pa­ny would have "dealt with it."

He said the com­pa­ny had de­cid­ed to fa­cil­i­tate dai­ly me­dia brief­in­gs in south Trinidad from next week and would an­swer ques­tions then.

...al­so want seis­mic test­ing in Gulf stopped

Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Fish­er­folk along the south­west­ern penin­su­la are call­ing on the state-run oil com­pa­ny Petrotrin to de­fer its seis­mic test­ing in the Gulf of Paria un­til the oil spills which have been rav­aging the coast­line for the past 19 days, are com­plete­ly cleaned up.Yes­ter­day, Ota­heite fish­er­folk took me­dia per­son­nel on a boat trip to see the seis­mic ves­sel, San­co Star-Gibral­tar Seis­mic, an­chored in the Gulf of Paria off Cap de Ville, Point Fortin.

While the T&T Guardian was there, ca­bles were be­ing low­ered from the ves­sel to the sea and pulled back up, in­di­cat­ing seis­mic test­ing was tak­ing place. Alvin La Bor­de, pres­i­dent of the La Brea Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, said fish­er­men were un­hap­py with Petrotrin's de­ci­sion to be­gin seis­mic blast­ing while the oil spills were still an ac­tive threat to ma­rine life."We have a dis­as­ter in the Gulf of Paria and now they be­gin seis­mic test­ing for the next five months," he added.

La Bor­de con­tend­ed that fish­er­men from Ota­heite to Ce­dros were faced with a big chal­lenge be­cause of the sur­vey.In 2006 Petro­Cana­da did a seis­mic sur­vey, he said, "and that last­ed four months and the fish stock did not re­cov­er. We on­ly now see­ing the in­crease in the fish stock and we have been ask­ing them to hold on the seis­mic test­ing."

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, La Bor­de con­tend­ed that ac­cord­ing to En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) reg­u­la­tions, Petrotrin has to com­pen­sate fish­er­folk be­fore be­gin­ning such sur­veys. To date, he said, no com­pen­sa­tion had been paid.La Bor­de said Petrotrin had of­fered $6,000 a month in com­pen­sa­tion, since it said the fish­ing stock was not high. He said the com­pa­ny was us­ing Min­istry of Fish­eries da­ta which was not ac­cu­rate, rather than da­ta col­lat­ed by fish ven­dors.

"All fish­er­folk from Ota­heite to Ce­dros re­ject it (Petrotrin's of­fer). They need to sit and work out a rea­son­able com­pen­sa­tion pack­age for the five months of pro­posed test­ing," La Bor­de said.The test­ing, he ex­plained, in­volved lay­ing ca­bles in the seabed and send­ing seis­mic blasts to de­ter­mine what ar­eas would be best to drill for oil. These blasts, he said, would force fish to mi­grate.

La Bor­de added fish­er­folk would have to keep their chil­dren home from school which was set to open on Mon­day, be­cause they had no mon­ey. He said Petrotrin promised to make in­ter­im pay­ments to the fish­er­men yes­ter­day but none had been made."The com­pa­ny does not seem to care any­thing about the res­i­dents and how they han­dle the oil," he added.