Last Christmas there was no yuletide joy for oil-spill affected residents of Coffee Beach, La Brea, and this year, they say, it’s no different. This was evident when the T&T Guardian visited residents last Wednesday, the anniversary of this country’s largest oil spill on record. There were no Christmas decorations adorning homes or customary soca parang blasting to spread the yuletide cheer.
Grieving widow Agnes Bernard-Lee, 74, and grieving mother Charmaine Montano, 51, both said their Christmas will never be the same as they now mourned the loss of their loved ones. Bernard-Lee’s husband Errol, 76, and Montano’s son Keith, 27, died from cancer mere weeks apart. They both maintain their loved ones were in good health prior to last December’s oil spill, which ravaged the southwestern peninsula dumping some 7,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Paria.
“How could I have a Christmas without Errol? My husband dead. Last year I did not have one with the oil spill and now I cannot have one ever again. He was a strong man. He used to do everything for me. He would pay the bills, paint the house and buy the groceries. In May month he take in sick and October 5 he died. They tell me it was cancer, he never had that. Everybody was shocked when he died,” lamented the wheelchair bound woman.
Montano shared the same sorrow as her neighbour, having lost her son to leukaemia in October. “When the oil spill come up he started to complain about it and say he did not want to stay here. He would come and go after they clean up. He start to get sick in August and then he died in October,” Montano lamented. Now, she said, she was fearful for her daughters and grandchildren, all of whom lived in close proximity to Coffee Beach.
“They had promised to relocate us and give us medical treatment. We always getting promises but nothing happen. After they stop the hamper and the food programme (after the clean-up was over) they never come back. That is nonsense,” Montano said.
Controversy was sparked during the massive clean-up campaign when the highly toxic dispersant Corexit 9500 was used to control thes pill.
The dispersant, which is banned in many countries, has been linked to health complications in people who were exposed to it during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. Coffee Beach resident Tenesha Modeste, whose skin was covered with a rash and whose scalp lost patches of hair, said she was still suffering from the aftermath of the oil spill.
“People still getting sick here. The children complaining about stomach pains and I have a rash that keeps coming and going. Petrotrin called me to get a check-up and they took blood tests and a piece of my scalp to do a biopsy. I never get back the results,” Modeste said. She said residents still felt neglected and life for them could never be the same again. She said the community felt forgotten.
Mother of seven, Nadia Montano, 31, said her twins Terick and Tersha, both two and a half, had bumps on their skin and recurring fever.
Environment recovering
The Environmental Management Authority fined Petrotrin $20 million after the devastating oil spills, four in total, which affected 12 locations including 10.5 miles of beach. Young mangrove shoots were seen along the reef that had been coated with oil from the spill at Coffee Beach, a sign that the environment was recovering.
Terrence Clevon Cadette, 28, said the mangrove behind his home still had oil and the wildlife he used to see there, including iguanas and birds, had disappeared. Squawking sea gulls were seen jostling each other as they perched atop the La Brea jetty near Coffee Beach. Cadette said fishermen had been fishing in the area, but their catch had decreased.