TT: Oil and gas spill puts residents to sleep on the road

LOS CHAROS residents slept on the streets on Wednesday night, as a haze of gas, oil and mud, spewing from an uncapped oil well, continued to envelop the area.

Although Petrotrin and lease contractor Rocky Point TT Ltd made a valiant effort to stop the flow of oil, resident Patrick Vargas said the well continued spraying more than 60 feet in the air around 6 am yesterday.

Rocky Point officials said it was only after 3 pm, that the oil spill was brought under control.

Petrotrin’s manager of corporate communications Arnold Corneal, in a press release, said the well, PS66, was capped with a safety valve and the spill was contained around 4.15 pm.

The oil covered cars, houses and vegetation, and some residents had to evacuate their homes. Vargas said his grandson Kerdel Smith had to be sent to stay with an aunt in Palo Seco.

“A lot of people complaining that their eyes, nose and chest burning them. We can’t take this oil and gas scent. It is not good for our health,” Vargas said.

Omega Bowen, 67, also complained of chest pains. Vargas said he and his seven-member family joined neighbours on the street on Wednesday because the gas scent had invaded his house.

“We feeling like we choking in there, and we spent most of the night on the road,” Vargas said.