The Tribune

FEARS are mounting on Crooked Island over the quality of the island’s ground water supply after it was discovered that nearly 50,000 gallons of diesel spilled from Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) tanks dislodged by Hurricane Joaquin.

BEC’s infrastructure was severely damaged by the storm, which has left the island without power. Last night, the only generator working on the island was believed to be the solar-powered unit delivered by the SOS - Save Our South relief flights on Saturday to Colonel Hill airport where a makeshift medical clinic has been set up.

At the weekend, Leslie Miller, the chairman of BEC, inspected two 25,000 gallon fuel tanks which had been shifted from their bases in Crooked Island and said that the job of repair was beyond BEC. “You need a crane to put it back in its place,” he said. “You see what happened, all of these (bolts holding the brackets) snapped. So you got to re-drill them to put them back in place. There’s a lot of work to do. This is why I say you need private contractors to come into these islands. You cannot rely on BEC to fix it.”

Kevin Basden, General Manager of BEC, said then that the company was bringing in additional teams to deal with the situation. That included replacing the power station unit and a number of utility poles that had come down.

The Crooked Island power plant was described on Saturday as being completely destroyed with the fuel tanks having been shifted by the storm, allegedly because the holding brackets had not been bolted down correctly. The engines had been swamped with seawater and oil appeared to have spilled out. The building housing the BEC office had been tipped onto its side.