The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

ENVIRONMENTALIST Sam Duncombe says as long as The Bahamas continues to power itself with fossil fuels, spills in Bahamian waters will continue to plague the country.

She said occurrences like that of the Exuma incident earlier this week where 35,000 gallons of diesel spilled into the waters of a bay at George Town have far reaching implications.

“It is a major issue for the entire country, not just Exuma,” Ms Duncombe said. “We’ve had continued oil spills at Clifton and you know this is ultimately our dependence on fossil fuels to generate power. We’ve been talking now for probably two decades about using the sun and looking into tidal power.

“When you have an oil spill it remains in the environment for a very long time. It goes into and under the rocks, it pretty much kills everything in its path. We’re talking about a very fragile ecosystem that is being bombarded by very dangerous chemicals.”

She questioned whether the necessary steps were taken to ensure The Arabian, a boat contracted by Sun Oil to supply diesel to Bahamas Power and Light in Exuma, was equipped and in shape to be carrying fuel throughout the country.

In an interview with The Tribune the activist said there will be long lasting effects of the fuel spill and whoever thinks it is possible to fully clean it is deluded.

“That area will continue to be impacted for a long time and anywhere that oil goes is going to be impacted. The fact is it is contained in that cove, where most of the damage is going to be. But you know the sea has no boundary. So, that oil can go out to the ocean and possibly settle on reefs.”

Ms Duncombe said although the country is known for its environment there has not been enough done to protect it. She has advocated over the years to stop the usage of oil.

“It’s mind blowing to me that we continue to use oil, that there is next to zero movements to get us off of oil. When we have a country that has sun 315 days a year and we could be powering ourselves by the sun and we haven’t done it.

“For decades we’ve been talking about moving to renewable energy. The sun is free and as much as we like free, the people who are making money off the oil aren’t too interested in that.”

The activist stressed that until there are some active decisions made about moving away from fossil fuels, incidents will happen. These incidents will significantly impact the country’s environment, she said.