The Tribune

THE Bahamas National Trust (BNT) has called for the government to pass an Environmental Protection Act - as it fears damage to wetlands following the oil leak at the Equinor facility in Grand Bahama during Hurricane Dorian.

“The Equinor oil spill opens our eyes to the need for an Environmental Protection Act to regulate industry. Freeport is the industrial capital of The Bahamas, home to oil storage facilities, ship repair facilities, a container port, chemical plants and aggregate mining. These activities have tremendous environmental, social, cultural and planning impacts,” said Eric Carey, BNT executive director.

Two months after Hurricane Dorian, Equinor, formerly Statoil, is continuing to clean up the onshore oil spill at its South Riding Point terminal. 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent were being stored at the time and Equinor has estimated that 119,000 barrels of oil were spilled.

Recently the Minister of the Environment tabled the Environmental Planning and Protection Act 2019, which seeks to establish the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection. It seeks to bring oversight for the industrial sector.

“The BNT endorses and supports this new legislation which will provide organised statutory regulatory frameworks for both foreign and domestic investors,“ said Mr Carey. “We believe that these investors will comply with this environmental legislation if it is set out and administered by properly funded and resourced agencies and we encourage the Government of The Bahamas to quickly move to put the legislation in place. We strongly feel that no new applications for oil storage or oil exploration should be considered before the appropriate regulatory legislation and commitment to enforcing it is in place.”

BNT has also restated its opposition to the Oban Energies project proposed for East Grand Bahama following this incident.

The National Oil Spill Contingency Advisory Committee (NOSCAC) is overseeing clean-up efforts being led by the Ministry of Transport and Local Government and has representatives from the BNT alongside others from the Bahamas Environment Science and Technology Commission (BEST) and other government and civil bodies.

Members have conducted several site visits and reported that about 290 workers are working on clean-up, with a spill response team working to recover oil from the ground. According to Equinor, 30 percent of the spilled oil has already been recovered and the cleanup continues.

“When the roofs blew off the storage tanks, the oil was blown to the north onto the land and not south into the sea. It is still a disaster, but dramatically less than it could have been. The prevailing current on the south shore of Grand Bahama is from the south-east to the west. If it had blown into the sea, it would have drifted to Gold Rock Beach in the Lucayan National Park, Peterson’s Cay National Park, Barbary Beach, Royal Caribbean’s Lucayan Beach into the many miles of Freeport’s canals, along the rest of Freeport’s beaches, into Freeport Harbour and eventually West End,” said Mr Carey.

Waterkeepers Bahamas, Save The Bays, and Waterkeepers Alliance recently released a report on their analysis of the spill and found compounds consistent with petroleum well above natural occurrence levels.

“The Waterkeepers analysis is a good start, but what we are waiting for is a comprehensive environmental impact report and remediation plan. We still have yet to see any ground water testing or plans for long-term monitoring,“ said Shelley Cant-Woodside, BNT director of science and policy.

The BNT said: “One of the main concerns is that the oil will eventually make its way expanding into more of the nearby wetlands, and deeper into the island’s freshwater reservoirs. Wetlands serve as places where water is filtered before entering the underground water table. The oil would diminish the quality of the island’s groundwater for drinking and freshwater resources.”