Aside from the fact that so much waste oil is being generated from the operations of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), the country faces another potential disaster from a maritime transaction that should have been better managed.
On Tuesday, the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) said a coordinated response had been developed after a barge carrying approximately 8,000 barrels of waste oil was observed listing significantly at a private wharf on the East Bank of Demerara.
The CDC in a statement said that no oil spill had been confirmed, but containment equipment and other response resources had been positioned as a precaution.
The operation involves the Maritime Administration Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Guyana Energy Agency, the Guyana Fire Service and the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard. According to the CDC, authorities mobilised to assess the situation and implement measures to reduce the risk of a spill.
“Current efforts are focused on supporting the safe stabilisation of the vessel and reducing the likelihood of any environmental impact,” the commission stated.
The CDC added that precautions were being taken to protect nearby communities, public safety and the surrounding environment, with resources positioned to respond should a spill occur.
Reading the CDC press release on Tuesday it might have appeared that this was a problem that had just arisen and the CDC had been vigilant and proactive. The truth however is that this listing vessel had a history which should have invited the sustained interest of regulatory authorities much earlier.
It now transpires that the waste oil remained aboard a leaking barge for months after arrangements for its export stalled and that the vessel’s owner had warned at the High Court in May that its deteriorating condition threatened a major spill in the Demerara River.
Court documents identify the vessel as HT100, owned by businessman Ganshyam Mahase and outlined a dispute with Miami-registered South Eastern Shipping Corp. over the removal of approximately 8,080 barrels of waste Bunker C oil and allegedly unpaid hire.
The commercial dispute is for the litigants and/or the court to settle. What should however have been the overriding interest of the state was to ensure that this cargo of waste oil to be exported did not pose a major threat to the waters of the Demerara River and beyond.
However, this threat has loomed since January of this year. Mr Mahase said he moved the barge to his own facility at Land of Canaan on January 9 after it developed a hull leak, placing it under continuous watch to prevent it from sinking and no doubt spawning a major disaster.
So in the roughly nine months since this problematic vessel developed a leak what did the authorities do? There has thus far been no statement from the CDC, EPA or other agencies involved in containing this problem on what they had done prior to Tuesday. Immediately on the detection of this problem in January, dispute or no dispute, the CDC, EPA and other agencies should have taken control of this vessel for the purpose of ensuring that it could be stabilized and that its cargo did not pose a threat to the environment, artisanal fishers and others.
That clearly did not happen and now the CDC and other agencies are scrambling to do damage control. The court matter will now pose some challenge over the custody of the vessel and what the state can and must do for the protection of the environment.
It is also of some interest that the charter agreement describes HT100 as a Guyana-flagged, 10,000-barrel-capacity fuel oil barge built in 1961. Here again an aged, 65-year-old vessel has come under scrutiny. Are there safety and maintenance records for this vessel establishing its seaworthiness?
Given the testimony emanating from the MV Barima CoI about the poor record-keeping for vessels and the limited inspections, it can be surmised that the barge with the waste oil may have avoided much needed scrutiny.
Now that this matter has come to the surface, the CDC and the EPA among other agencies have to take control of this waste oil shipment to ensure that Guyana is not visited by another maritime tragedy.
Discussion