In two weeks time, the public will know whether there is any corexit leftover in the Gulf of Paria from the clean-up of the 2013 oil spills.
Yesterday, after three years of begging Government and the private sector to investigate the effects of Corexit on marine life in the Gulf of Paria, Fisherman and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) contracted Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) to carry out the tests.
Yesterday, FFOS secretary, Gary Aboud, took the T&T Guardian on a tour of Point Sable and Carrat Shed beaches, both of which were littered with thousands of dead and decaying fish.
La Brea fisherman, Wayne Henry, and activist Edward Moodie were also present as the two CARIRI research officers collected a live salmon and two other dead fish from among the wide array of fish.
The carcasses spanned a three-mile stretch of beach and vultures flocked close by, eating to their leisure.
Aboud said: “We are right here where the corexit was used because the oil came ashore here.
“Since the use of the corexit and other chemicals that were never independently verified, everyday fish washed ashore and every day I talked to him (Henry) and every day he would tell me, ‘No Gary, not plentiful, just one, one.’
“But nowhere in T&T are fish washing up ‘one, one.’
“We have had flipper dolphins, we have had pelicans, corbeaux, we have had dogs come along the beach and eat the sick fish. There are chickens feeding on the carcasses of the dead fish.”
He said FFOS decided to pay for the tests for petroleum hydrocarbon as the public needed to be made aware of the issue.
“Somebody needs to verify (what is happening). Today I am wearing gloves because I have been cautioned about the danger of exposing myself to this water but just up the road there is Carrat Shed beach facilities where everyday there are 100 to 200 cars, with people and their families swimming in the water,” he added.
He expressed concern that fishermen continued to fish in the waters, unaware of the danger they were causing their families.
Aboud added: “According to the CARIRI officers and Moodie, people should not even put their foot in this water.
“So we are wearing gloves and boots as a protective measure but who is protecting the public of T&T when shrimp trawlers are trawling.
“Right here you can see them trawling, where fishermen are going off the end of the jetty and diving and shooting fish, taking it home to feed their families.”
He called on Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to get involved and ensure the fishermen were compensated if they needed to be, adding:
“No one has issued a definitive public warning and so we are depending on the Prime Minister to get involved and make sure that fairness plays.
“We don’t want anything that is bogus or unreasonable but for the fishermen, there needs to be some kind of relief for the damage that was done by Petrotrin.”
Henry, who said he stopped fishing two years ago because of the constant fish deaths, explained the dead fish only washed onto the Mosquito Creek last week Monday as a result of a changing tide.
“There are all types of fish, it have crab, bouchet, racando, blinch, salmon, taraut, snakes, herrin, glow fish, shrimp, everything dying for the past three years.
“It is only because it wash up on the Mosquito Creek they saying fishermen dumping that from the trawler and all kind of things.
“It had an uptide. Normally the tide goes from east to west and the tide went from the west to north,” he added.