Mystery over oil on La Brea beach

A spattering of oil and oily droplets were observed dotting the coastline by residents of Carrat Shed and Coffee beaches, La Brea on Friday morning, almost one week after pools of oil washed ashore along the same beaches.

President of the La Brea Fisherfolk Association, Alvin La Borde, told reporters he had arrived at Carrat Shed beach just after 9.30 am on Friday for a clean-up exercise when he observed oil pellets along the coastline.

“I went to Point Sable beach as well as Station beach and observed the same said oil on the shorelines...This was observed during low tide this morning and now the tide is rising so you would not see it,” La Borde said. While Petrotrin sent representatives to the shoreline when contacted the company, no one from the EMA visited the beach in response to a call from him.

There here was no visible signs of oil or pools of oil along the shoreline, nor of oil coating fishing boats at the time of a Newsday visit to the beaches.

Asked if an oil slick could be seen in the deeper waters, La Borde said, “that is the surprising thing, in the daylight, you not seeing any trace of any oil at all, but is only in the morning period that you observe this oil on the shoreline.” “I am questioning if this is something that is being done by some mischievous person or is it that it have a cause for concern with a leak that is coming from out there,” he said, adding there were conflicting reports the oil could be the result of an oil bunkering barge anchored off the La Brea coast or from an oil spill in the Trinmar area.

He said the oil was hampering tourism in La Brea area as a group of tourists stopped by Carrat Shed beach after visiting the Pitch Lake but left after venturing into the water with clumps of oil sticking to their feet.

“It is a deterrent to the development of tourism in the area, a lot of the beachgoers are also deterred from coming here to Carrat Shed beach so I keep a bottle of pitch oil in the van to assist people,” he said.

La Borde also dismissed a recent report issued by the Planning and Development Ministry which stated fish and shrimp caught in the Gulf of Paria were safe to eat.

“We have no confidence in these people at all because we had sent letters, emails, to every single one of these bodies requesting that they do the testing with the assistance of the fisherfolk to supervise what is happening because we have certain areas within the Gulf of Paria that we are questioning the operations that are taking place,” he said.

“But they went ahead on their own and they did that testing and now they are saying these tests were done in La Brea and these different areas but with whom were the tests done?” “The fish and shrimp that they took, you don’t know where it came from… no, no, they coulda take all of that from Maracas and take it and carry it for testing, we don’t know,’ he said.