As oil spill cleanup continues, government vows transparency

Clean-up of the oil spill in Oistins is seemingly progressing smoothly, with officials continuing to assure the public that there is no evidence of oil seeping into the sea.

At the same time, the government is promising sustained transparency as operations push ahead over the coming days and potentially weeks.

Energy Minister Senator Lisa Cummins, along with a team from the Barbados National Energy Company Ltd. (BNECL), led by Group Health and Safety Manager Damien Catlyn, toured the affected area on Saturday and updated the media on the complex, multi-agency response effort.

The incident, which remains under internal investigation, was first reported on Friday. It involved a rupture at a crude oil pipeline located at BNECL’s fuel loading facility, which resulted in oil escaping onto the beach and into surrounding drainage systems.

Quick response from state agencies and private stakeholders helped contain the flow before it reached critical marine zones, with booms, berms and absorbent barriers deployed across the impacted coastline.

Catlyn detailed the process: “We brought forward an interim dam into the Merino Fall to push our contaminated material further in. That allows us now to start concentrating on the sand that we can remove . . . We’ve begun the flushing process again to get … all of the residues out of the subterranean drains.”

The repetitive flushing and suction operation has now become a daily protocol. Contaminated sand is being extracted with assistance from the Ministry of Transport and Works (MTW) and the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA), while oils from drainage are filtered, skimmed, and transported for safe processing at BNECL’s facilities.

The site has been fortified with a multi-tiered containment system.

“We have a triple layer of protection protecting the marine environment,” Catlyn explained. “First, we created a berm with clean sand. Then we reinforced it with sargassum… the sea tends not to wash away the sargassum as fast. Seaward of that, we laid two layers of absorbent boom.”

Energy Minister Senator Lisa Cummins and Barbados National Energy Company Ltd. representative Damien Catlyn inspecting the site.

Minister Cummins, who visited the area with engineers and contractors, highlighted the complexity of managing unseen hazards.

“When we arrived (Friday), we would have seen the oil coming down,” she said. “But all of the oil did not end up behind those booms . . . some would have gone through the drainage systems. So we can’t just clean that which you can see; you have to clean everything that you can’t see.”

As part of the ongoing cleanup, teams are flushing out underground drains with high-powered washers and tracking the flow of residue towards the marine outfall, where skimmers are used to collect and transfer oil into holding tanks.

“What you are seeing now isn’t the original oil that you saw running yesterday,” Cummins added. “What you’re seeing is water that has been used to flush down the system… and that is what is being carted away.”

The captured oil is being treated at BNECL’s processing facility, where clay-lined settling ponds allow hydrocarbons to separate, be skimmed, and reprocessed for later export. “We then allow the sun to evaporate and weather the water that’s left,” said Catlyn.

Cleanup teams have so far reported no seepage into the sea.

“We inspected the boom this (Saturday) morning. The boom was perfectly clean, so we assured ourselves that there was no seepage,” Catlyn said. Still, precautions remain in place in case of rains. “We also are going to leave a skimmer… it’ll pull oil off the surface, and we would collect it into a tank to keep it safe.”

Friday’s incident triggered swift coordination across agencies, including the Environmental Protection Department (EPD), MTW, the National Conservation Commission, and even volunteers from nearby businesses.

While environmentalists have raised concern about potential long-term ecological effects, Cummins assured the public of the government’s commitment to transparency and safety.

“It’s an ongoing process. It’s not a one-and-done, as you can see because we’re back out here,” she said.

Residents in the area have been urged to remain cautious but were told that conditions are improving. “This is now a settling pond,” Catlyn said of one site. “The water quality is significantly better than it was when we first had the issue.”

Authorities expect monitoring and cleanup operations to continue for several more days or weeks, depending on weather and drainage flow. For now, officials are cautiously optimistic that the worst has been avoided. (SZB)