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Tuesday, June 24, 2025

IMA probes oil dumped in derelict sea vessel

by

19 days ago
20250605

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Thou­sands of bar­rels of what is be­lieved to be used en­gine oil have been dis­cov­ered il­le­gal­ly dumped in the hull of an aban­doned long­lin­er ship in an area known as the “Grave­yard” off Ch­aguara­mas

The Grave­yard is in­fa­mous for be­ing a park­ing zone for aban­doned sea ves­sels.

The dis­cov­ery was made by Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS), whose cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, Gary Aboud, says the oil is now leak­ing in­to the sea, threat­en­ing near­by is­lands, fish­ing grounds and ves­sels in the Gulf of Paria.

The dis­cov­ery has trig­gered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) and the T&T Coast Guard, who were on site yes­ter­day con­duct­ing fu­el sam­pling and foren­sic test­ing to trace the ori­gin of the oil.

The op­er­a­tion was led by IMA prin­ci­pal re­search of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Ban­joo and di­rec­tor Dr Ava Max­am.

The ves­sel, a derelict fish­ing long­lin­er, was found hold­ing up to 12 feet of thick, black oil in its front stor­age com­part­ment, a sec­tion nor­mal­ly used to store ice and catch.

Aboud said the oil is re­fined au­to­mo­tive oil, not crude oil, in­di­cat­ing a like­ly il­le­gal dump from ser­vice or com­mer­cial ves­sels. He es­ti­mat­ed that more than 2,000 bar­rels (near­ly 84,000 gal­lons) of used en­gine oil had been il­le­gal­ly dumped in­to the hull.

“This is en­vi­ron­men­tal ter­ror­ism for prof­it,” Aboud said dur­ing a site vis­it yes­ter­day.

“Some­body is de­lib­er­ate­ly us­ing this derelict ves­sel to avoid prop­er dis­pos­al fees. This is used en­gine oil, clear­ly pumped in­to this hull. There’s no way this much end­ed up here by mis­take.”

He showed the me­dia how the oil sits vis­i­bly be­low deck, mea­sur­ing up to 12 feet deep, and point­ed out hose mark­ings and over­flow stains around the ves­sel.

“You can see ex­act­ly where they’re pump­ing it in. This is cal­cu­lat­ed, crim­i­nal, and it’s poi­son­ing our sea,” he ex­plained.

Aboud fur­ther al­leged that one of the barges be­lieved to be in­volved is owned by a well-known cor­po­rate fig­ure.

“You can make a lot of mon­ey do­ing the wrong thing, and that’s what’s hap­pen­ing here,” he said.

Aboud said the ves­sel in­volved got wind of the au­thor­i­ties com­ing and left. He en­gaged the IMA team telling them he knew who the cul­prits were.

Fish­er­men said the area was once one of the rich­est fish­ing grounds off Trinidad’s west coast.

“You don’t see red­fish. We used to catch 10 mil­lion foot­ballers (a type of fish) on a Sun­day here. Now, noth­ing lives,” one fish­er­man lament­ed.

Aboud said even one drop of oil can dev­as­tate ma­rine ecosys­tems.

“We have stud­ies show­ing high hy­dro­car­bon lev­els in fish. This oil is car­cino­genic it can kill you if it gets on your skin, and we’re eat­ing fish from these wa­ters.”

Aboud called on the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly re­view mar­itime laws.

“The cur­rent leg­is­la­tion does not em­pow­er the Gov­ern­ment to pros­e­cute these op­er­a­tors ef­fec­tive­ly. All we can do is ex­pose and shame them and we will.”

He urged agen­cies to work to­geth­er in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

“The elec­tion is over. Let’s come to­geth­er to pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment, the fish­er­men, and our fu­ture.”


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