Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The mas­sive oil spill in the Gulf of Paria is be­lieved to have spread to Patos Is­land, off the coast of Venezuela.This was re­vealed by pres­i­dent of Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea Gary Aboud, who mount­ed a pre-dawn cam­paign to pre­vent Petrotrin's 510km2 Ocean Bot­tom Ca­ble (OBC) seis­mic sur­vey, cur­rent­ly be­ing done in the Gulf of Paria.Brav­ing pos­si­ble ar­rests, dozens of fish­er­men ac­com­pa­nied Aboud on his jour­ney, say­ing it was the on­ly way to pro­tect their liveli­hood.

With the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copter hov­er­ing ahead, the fish­er­men left the Ota­heite Bay short­ly af­ter sun­rise and head­ed to­wards the San­co Star seis­mic ship, sta­tioned about six miles off the coast of Cap-de-Ville. They ar­rived around 8:25 am and were ad­vised by Petrotrin po­lice to stay off the seis­mic zone. The T&T Coast Guard and Air Guard al­so kept watch.

The fish­er­men cir­cled the boats for sev­er­al hours, and the San­co Star seis­mic ship left the seis­mic area around noon. It is un­cer­tain whether seis­mic sur­veys con­tin­ued in the af­ter­noon.Aboud said the seis­mic sur­veys should have been halt­ed un­til Petrotrin re­moves all traces of oil from the seabed."Day be­fore yes­ter­day, we got a re­port in Patos, off the coast of Venezuela, that there was oil there. Once the oil is sub­merged it is go­ing to move. In the Gulf, the tides move in a cir­cu­lar mo­tion so it is spread­ing to Venezuela," Aboud said.

"We have se­ri­ous con­cerns about the health of the fish­eries and the long term vi­a­bil­i­ty of fish­ing in the Gulf of Paria as a whole. This rais­es a very se­ri­ous con­cern about the li­a­bil­i­ty of Petrotrin to the na­tion."

"We have sent for­mal cor­re­spon­dence to the Pres­i­dent which has not yet ar­rived. This oil spill is a na­tion­al is­sue and one which re­quires the most ur­gent at­ten­tion, es­pe­cial­ly for the vic­tims of La Brea," Aboud re­vealed. Ef­forts to con­tact Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador Maria Eu­ge­nia Mar­cano Casa­do proved fu­tile as calls to the of­fice went unan­swered.Aboud told the fish­er­men that Petrotrin's ac­tions were il­le­gal.

"The seis­mic ship is op­er­at­ing out­side of the law. The EMA has cre­at­ed cer­tain cri­te­ria be­fore Petrotrin could be­gin the sur­vey and they have not com­plied. The EMA is al­low­ing an il­le­gal­i­ty to oc­cur. They are crim­i­nal­is­ing the fish­eries. In­stead of clean­ing up the spill and send­ing down divers to lo­cate the sub­merged oil, they are con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing our food bas­ket," Aboud de­clared.

Where is Patos Is­land?

Patos Is­land is a small un­in­hab­it­ed is­land in the south­east­ern Caribbean Sea. The is­land is a part of the Fed­er­al De­pen­den­cies of Venezuela. It is lo­cat­ed about 250 km (160 mi) north­east of Cara­cas in the Gol­fo de Paria (Gulf of Paria). It lies in the Bo­ca Grande strait of the Bo­cas del Drag�n (Drag­on's Mouth), ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4 km off the coast of main­land Venezuela and about 10 km west-south-west of Cha­cachacare.

The un­in­hab­it­ed is­land has an area of on­ly 0.65 square km (0,25 square miles)[1] with a length of 1.1 km (0.68 mi) and 6 km (3.7 mi) wide with the high­est point reach­ing about 100 me­ters.