FFOS produces ‘evidence’ of contaminated fish in south

FFOS advisor, Environmental Engineer Cathal Healy-Singh, made the announcement yesterday at a press conference held at the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights in Belmont, Port-of-Spain.

The tests were commissioned by the FFOS after several dead fish had washed up along the south western peninsula months ago.

It was suggested by the FFOS that Corexit, an oil dispersant used during oil spill response operations, may have caused the fish kill although statements issued by the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and the Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) in July and August stated that this was not so.

Healy-Singh traced the onset of the fish kills in the Gulf of Paria back to the December 17, 2013 oil spill, the largest in a series of oil spills that Petrotrin grappled with that year.

“What happened next is that we saw that Petrotrin was not equipped to respond adequately to the spill,” Healy-Singh said.

“It didn’t have the required equipment and that equipment was brought in from overseas. But what they did do is that they had a lot of dispersant in-house and on land, and they applied the dispersant before they contained the spill. As a result of that, the dispersant was able to find its way into the mangrove and coastal areas.

That was problematic because Corexit is, in fact, only supposed to be used in the open sea. So that created a number of problems that we don’t fully understand. But what we do know is that since December 17, 2013, that at the onset of the rainy season, and after rain falls in the La Brea area, we understand that this is what seems to cause the fish kills; or at least the fish seem to wash up after the rains fall and certainly much more so in the rainy season than in the dry season.” Nonetheless, Healy-Singh, said based on media reports on the EMA findings, he could only conclude that the Government has been trying to do damage control.

He suggested that Government officials appeared “tense” when they conveyed to the public that the dead fish were as a result of discarded catch from fishermen.

Three investigations have been carried out by the FFOS with regards to the recent fish kill and while Healy-Singh revealed the findings of their first two investigations, the third is pending.