GLOBAL OIL SPILL BLOWS FOR ROWLEY

THE Keith Rowley Government is getting blows in the international media over its handling of the mystery Tobago oil spill, one of the worst in global history.

Reputable media agencies are asking why there is limited information on the shipping vessel that caused the spill and whether the authorities are doing enough to limit the spread.

News reports are noting that Prime Minister Rowley stepped in several days after the disaster and it took a long period for the launch of a widespread clean-up operation.

When Rowley visited the affected area, he said that “the situation is not under control.”

Questions have been aired about whether the owners of the offending vessel Solo Creed reported that they had lost the barge that was being towed from Panama.

An analyst queried: “Why can’t they answer how much oil it was carrying?”

Another commentator asked why a barge was being used in the open Caribbean and Atlantic oceans.

“That is the core of the trade wind belt where eight to 10-foot fair-weather seas are the norm.

“Barges are for rivers and canals.”

Oil Spill Response Ltd. (OSRL), an international industry-funded organisation, arrived a week and a half after the calamity.

Others are commenting that although the vessel was in Trinidad and Tobago’s territorial waters, details about the ship were not immediately known.

One analyst said “the seas are not patrolled well” and pointed to previous occasions when there were tar blobs on the beaches.

Rowley was chided for stating it was fortunate the vessel overturned in a sparsely populated area and if it had happened farther north or west, it could have contaminated resorts and tourist attractions.

One commentator said the Prime Minister was minimising the environmental damage caused by the disaster.

Another reviewer wrote: “Environmentally speaking, it probably would have been better for it to soil the tourist area since it would get a more complete clean-up, and maybe even raise questions about regulations to prevent oil spills as well as containment response.”

A critic said: “I was told that tankers cleaned out their innards off the coast.”

One wrote in Washington Post newspaper: “Carnival week is the absolute best week of the year to obfuscate government incompetence and the country’s preoccupation with parties, sparkly costumes and bacchananlia, and no one will give this little spill a second thought.”

Initial reports were that the spill impacted about 12 kilometres (about 7.4 miles) but independent reviewers said it could span up to 88 kms.

That size would make the spill larger than one in 1979 off T&T, in which 16 kms (10 miles) were affected.

That catastrophe saw the release of some 90 million gallons of oil in the Atlantic Ocean by the Atlantic Empress vessel.

International agencies described that spill as the third worst in world history.

The current spill has attracted extensive global media coverage, in sharp contrast to T&T, where it has been the second story to Carnival.

The worldwide reporting generally highlighted the fact that little was known for several days about the cause of the disaster and investigations are now being cranked up.

Reports termed the oil discharge as “a mystery,” with extensive environmental damage and contamination of vast areas of Caribbean beaches.