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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Authorities probe Chaguaramas oil spill

by

2836 days ago
20171016

Con­cern has been ex­pressed that ac­tion has not been tak­en quick­ly enough to con­tain an oil spill which has been spread­ing across Trinidad’s north-west­ern coast since ear­ly yes­ter­day.

“If this was in the wa­ter since morn­ing, you mean to say they have not put out in­for­ma­tion by now warn­ing peo­ple about it?”asked one beach go­er as he looked at the thick black oily sub­stance coat­ing the wa­ter.

Up to late yes­ter­day, there was no con­fir­ma­tion of whether the sub­stance was ac­tu­al­ly oil, or in­for­ma­tion on where it orig­i­nat­ed from. The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) ad­vised in a me­dia re­lease that the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA), Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) and the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (MSD) had all been no­ti­fied.

A team despatched to in­ves­ti­gate the spill with the as­sis­tance of the Air Guard con­firmed that the black oily sub­stance had been seen be­tween Al­coa and Five Is­lands and was con­cen­trat­ed with­in Williams Bay and along the Board­walk in Ch­aguara­mas. Streaks of the oily sheen were re­port­ed near Harts Cut and the Five Is­lands, but noth­ing was ob­served fur­ther west of the Five Is­lands.

While in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing to iden­ti­fy the po­ten­tial source of the oily sub­stance, the EMA ap­pealed for peo­ple with in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward.

The Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion has ad­vised all ma­rine craft to be aware of the oily sub­stance in the wa­ter and to re­port the ex­tent of the spill and any in­for­ma­tion about who might be re­spon­si­ble. The pub­lic can pro­vide in­for­ma­tion by call­ing 680-9588 or email via com­plaints@ema.co.tt.

Ka­mal Seep­aul, of Trin­clean, who vis­it­ed Harts Cut Bay to view the dam­age, ex­pressed shock as he sur­veyed the oil which had washed ashore. He said his com­pa­ny was will­ing to as­sist in the clean up.

Of­fi­cials lat­er con­firmed that Kaizen En­vi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices had been ap­point­ed by the En­er­gy Min­istry to do an as­sess­ment to­day. They said in the ab­sence of any­one com­ing for­ward to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, tests will be done to de­ter­mine the type and qual­i­ty of the oil with a view to iden­ti­fy the sup­pli­er and lo­cate the ves­sel trans­port­ing the sub­stance.

Sec­re­tary of Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) Gary Aboud said he got a call around 1.15 am yes­ter­day about a mas­sive oil spill in the Gulf of Paria and vis­it­ed the area at around 6 am.

“Thick black oil spread­ing along the south­ern side of the en­tire north-west­ern penin­su­la of Trinidad in the vicin­i­ty of Five Is­lands, Car­rera Is­land, Con­strat Is­land and Gaspree Is­land,” he said in a video sent to lo­cal me­dia.

“The area cov­ered in oil ap­pears to be much larg­er than the city of Port of Spain.”

Aboud warned that the dam­age would be greater as ris­ing tides would thin the the oily sub­stance and spread it over a wider area. He called on Par­lia­ment to pass leg­is­la­tion that will com­mand a full emer­gency in­ves­tiga­tive au­thor­i­ty to in­spect every sin­gle ves­sel, tanker, pipeline, oil ter­mi­nal re­fin­ery, or tank farm sus­pect­ed.

“Every year the Ch­aguara­mas area suf­fers from mas­sive oil spills and no one has ever been pros­e­cut­ed or fined,” he said.


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