Oil Spills and Eye Pass: A Warning to the People of Guyana and the Caribbean

Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) is a 28year-old environmental watch-dog NGO in Trinidad and Tobago, committed to monitoring the activities of the extractive sector. This week’s contribution has been edited by Alissa Trotz, Editor of the Diaspora Column.

Almost two weeks ago, the region learned that the coastguard of Trinidad and Tobago had spotted fuel oil leaking from an overturned and abandoned barge, thick crude that would soon be washing up on Tobago’s coastline. As of Thursday, the British Guardian reported that the oil was “entering Grenada’s waters and could affect neighbouring Venezuela.”

In 2021, FFOS wrote a diaspora column, Corruption, Pollution and Economic Crisis: The Cautionary Tale of T&T’s Oil Industry, stating clearly, “We write to warn Guyana as it is set to take over from T&T as the new “hydrocarbon capital” in the Caribbean. This is our cautionary tale of the treachery of ‘Big Oil’ and national leaders, of impending environmental catastrophe, of hosting extractors lacking conscience.”

That tale continues with this most recent oil spill. On February 13, FFOS issued the following statement: “Today is day 7, and our traumatized islands are left in the dark as the thick crude oil continues to spread into our food chain fishery and onto our Tobago tourism inventory.

According to the Tobago Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), booms have been successfully deployed in the vicinity of the leaking Gulfstream vessel but isn’t more oil still leaking from the vessel? It’s critical at this stage that we determine how much more oil will be leaked to determine if the booms will contain it. Where are the skimmers to vacuum the oil being trapped in the boom? According to the 2014 National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP), Petrotrin owned 3 vacuum skimmers and 5 other types of skimmers. Where are these skimmers today? BpTT has 3 rope skimmers, and BHP has 3 skimmers. Why haven’t these skimmers been immediately deployed? Now the oil is spreading northwest! Worldwide, there are many “GULF STREAM” named vessels. Most are of different lengths and uses. If the TT investigating team, (still unknown), measures the length and width of the vessel, this would be the first step to identifying the model of this vessel, and or confirming whether it’s a freight vessel or a tanker and would narrow down an International Maritime Organisation search of the possible owner/s. Isn’t there an international list of registered vessels?

Secondly, and much easier, since this vessel sails under a St Kitts and Nevis flag of convenience, why haven’t our (unknown investigative) team already contacted the St Kitts and Nevis authorities to reveal the owner’s names and all details of the capacity and use of this vessel. Certainly, they should have records of what this Gulfstream is equipped to do. Or do they? And if not, why not? We are baffled by the Trinidad and Tobago Government’s delay (bordering on gross incompetence) in detecting the Gulfstream drifting into our waters and onto our coral reef. Where did this vessel emanate from, and what was it carrying? Does it mean that any vessel can enter our border and carry any substance… undetected?

The thick oil-like substance observed appears to be an unrefined crude oil, suggesting that the Gulfstream is either a tanker or a floating storage and offloading vessel like the recently threatening Venezuelan FSO Nabarima, which FFOS exposed. Based on this GULF STREAM length which is estimated to be between 300 to 560 feet (again still unconfirmed), and to be conservative, if it was half filled, we estimate that it could contain between 150,000 to 350,000 barrels of crude oil.

If FFOS is correct, this spill has just begun.”

(This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)

Two days later, on February 15th, FFOS took to the media again: “Now that the culprits have been identified, several issues arise:

1. Who will bear the clean-up costs? We have 9 laws and 4 policies that are supposed to be functioning to ensure that our land and marine areas are

protected against oil pollution! Our Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 1990) is clear when it dictates a strict liability standard for damage from oil spills and establishes criminal sanctions including mandatory incarceration for the irresponsible and negligent culprits (TTD 10,000 AND twelve months in imprisonment).

2. Will our fisherfolk whose livelihoods and equipment, boats and engines were directly impacted, be paid fair and just compensation?

3. When will the owners of the tug inform us of the volume of crude oil being transported which is still spilling onto our waters?

4. Where is the Solo Creed tug that was pulling the barge….abandonment of this hydrocarbon toxic substance must be a criminal charge!

5. Tobago Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) is claiming that the oil-contaminated beaches are cleaned, but fishers are still complaining that Tobago’s coastal areas are still covered in oil. As it is typical of Governments to downplay the extent of disastrous and horrific events like this oil spill, we ask if there is an independent assessment of the efficacy of the booms and other clean-up measures. We appeal for honesty.

6. TT have 120 years experience in oil and gas, yet, this oil spill disaster, is another example of our embarrassing and disgraceful lack of emergency preparedness. It took us 5 days to boom and even now on day 9, there are no reports of skimmers being used to collect the oil “allegedly” trapped inside the booms.

7. What will become of the oil that is drifting northwest that has not been contained?

8. The last time anyone was charged for an oil spill, was in 2013 when the now defunct Petrotrin was charged 20 million TTD for spilling 7000 barrels of bunker C fuel which came ashore in La Brea. Today we estimate that this Tobago spill is already 3 times larger. Since then, there have been hundreds of spills, with an average of 2 spills per week, and Trinidad has never charged anyone.

9. In this age of technology, why do we still not know, if and how many lives were lost? Is it that these lives have no value?

This disaster is yet another reason why an effective national radar network is needed. In fact, it underscores the urgency of a collaborative CARICOM network with synchronized laws and penalties, emergency response and information sharing, and offshore surveillance, as several nations continue to gallop onto the oil and gas stage.”

And last week, FFOS released a video clip in which Corporate Sceretary Gary Aboud laid out some of the key issues:

“…Tobago has not had an oil spill. It’s a tourism island and the tourism and the fishery are being destroyed.

It’s a much bigger issue than an oil spill, though. It’s an issue of flags of convenience, where international fleets avoid tax and environmental and labour and all of the regulations that exist in their home country by going to a third party country who issued a special flag that they can operate with their flag of convenience, without any protection of workers, without any law to ensure that nationals are employed, without any safety or health standards, without any environmental safeguards.

And there are no decommissioning regulations. Where is the UN? Well since 1958 the International Law Commission made a statement and everybody said yes, really good, every country should ensure that these flags abide by the law of the country, but they never ratified it…So our Gulf of Paria is a graveyard. Every vessel from every country in every part of the world comes here and dumps the vessel.

And Fishermen and Friends of the Sea have simply said, for three decades of our existence, let us make value out of waste, ensure that the decommissioning is done in a lawful way, removing all the toxic and hazardous material. And use this waste to create artificial reefs in areas where shrimp trawlers break the law, or in areas depleted from one type of activity or another, it will create an artificial reef, a fish aggregation location.

But it hasn’t happened. So we are calling on the Government of Trinidad and

Tobago again and we are calling on the United Nations, do the work that is needed to protect our planet and our people. Today we have such a disaster. And if the oil spill contingency plan had kicked in, and the Environmental Management Agency had responded immediately, this event started on Wednesday, why was there no emergency response on Wednesday? Everything could have been avoided, booms could have been created around the event, and nothing would have come ashore. Since Wednesday, where’s our Government?

Why are the coastguards, our coastguard of the Southern Caribbean, not warned of the risk in expectation of this oil coming North to Grenada and St. Vincent, for instance? What is to happen if Guyana has an oil spill and the Gulf Stream comes straight onto us and up to Grenada? What preparation and discussion is happening at a CARICOM level to protect our region? This is not a small thing. In 2017 we had the Tank70 eruption in Petrotrin facilities in Pointe-A-Pierre. And the oil covered Venezuela, it went to Curaçao and Aruba, it was tracked all the way to Mexico.

Another thing that bothers us is why are the coastal residents in Tobago not being evacuated, the fumes, the Windward breeze is taking it straight onto lowlands, all these residents should not be breathing these fumes. When will the impact on Tobago tourism and our fishermen, especially, be determined? I’m asking, is the Minister of Health going to test the fish and do a seafood study to determine the safety of consumption after this spill? And why has it taken so long to call on volunteers? And who are the professionals that are employed to respond to this? Is it the volunteers who must clean up a spill when the Government has taken so long to respond to it?

This is an emergency, but it is part of a warning emergency for what is still to come.”

Returning to the diaspora column, FFOS offered this advice to Guyanese three years ago:

“As we confront diminishing reserves, our vast wealth is plundered, and our legacy tainted irreparably. The extractors profited exponentially from trillions of dollars’ worth of our minerals, some businesspeople are well off, but we are left with over 20 percent of our nationals below the poverty line, a polluted environment beyond repair, escalating numbers of cancer patients, and institutionalized corruption as a lucrative way of life. Our rural communities, which hosted ‘Big Oil’ are deprived of their stake in national wealth. The few dollars earned in royalties have gone to urban centres, while host communities suffer the consequences of environmental degradation, neglect, poverty, and lost livelihoods…Who will protect your nation’s natural resources, viability of your economy, fence-line communities exposed to the chemicals of this industry, those at risk of losing their livelihoods, and public health?

These are the lessons we learned: Citizens must hold leaders accountable to ensure that Big Oil does not use, abuse, belittle and pollute your country. You must never accept it when leaders trust extractors to self-monitor their production, equipment, systems, and disposal methods. Beware of leaders and regulatory institutions that expedite environmental permits and allow company violations with impunity. Fight for the independence of your regulatory institutions from political bosses. Arm yourself with credible information. Fight for the relevant legislation and fight in the courts when agents of the law ignore that very law. Demand that your elected representatives protect your Treasury. Work to unify your segregated society. Empower and support communities on the front lines of pollution. Finally, support your NGOs who must prepare to defend your national patrimony in and out of Court against the lack of conscience within your own land, not just among extractors. You must heed our warning as those who have been traumatized by a century of fossil fuel extraction.

Stand guard, otherwise you too will end up pauperised and polluted.”

When will we listen? We close this week by urging Guyanese and Caribbean people to look at and share this video made by the women’s organisation Red Thread (there are also versions in Spanish and Kreyol), about the fact that there is no proper insurance for any oil spill in Guyana’s waters, in a context in which Exxon’s own maps show that a spill will spread across the region, just as FFOS has warned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ 7eb7D2gjo&t=37s

It is time to wake up.