Oil slick and tar pollute parts of east coast Bonaire

A Stinapa Junior Ranger shows his gloves, covered with oil from cleaning efforts this morning. Foto: Bonaire.Nu

Kralendijk- This morning cleaning efforts got underway at Bonaire’s east coast where remnants of an oil spill in Trinidad ended up on the shore. After Stinapa rang the alarm bell, government got into action to monitor, by plane, where exactly any oil was drifting in the sea. This was a joint effort by the harbor master, coast guard, habor masters in Curaçao and Aruba and representatives of the Dutch ministry for Infrastructure & Environment (Infrastructuur & Milieu or I&M).

The government Public Relations officer has stated that oil from the same spill has also ended up on the beaches of Venezuelan Los Roques islands, which are only 170 kilometers away from Bonaire. One of the complicating factors is that the salt sea water has turned most of the oil into tar, so that it cannot easily be detected by air. Because of this it is not easy to determine if more oil is indeed on its way to Bonaire.

So far, most tar and other remnants of oil ended up between Sorobon and the Willemstoren. Government says that it cannot exclude the possibility of more oil remnants coming ashore over the coming days.