At press time this evening clean-up operations were reportedly still underway at Spanish Lookout, Cayo, after an accidental spray of crude oil reportedly dotted a half-mile tract downstream off a gas flare that reportedly malfunctioned late Thursday night, January 3.
Belize Natural Energy (BNE) had set up the flare to combust the natural gas component of the petroleum extracted from Spanish Lookout wells, while the crude oil is extracted in a separator and channeled away to storage tanks. But things didn’t quite work out that way last Thursday, and crude, instead, escaped up the flare, causing a black plume of smoke and a light spray of crude over vegetation, sidewalks, houses and a reservoir nearby.
Amandala spoke with Allan Reimer, chairman of the Spanish Lookout Petroleum Board, which was formed in March 2006. Reimer shared with us his observations and the perspective of residents in the area.
We also spoke with the Chief Executive Officer of Belize Natural Energy (BNE), Dr. Gilly Canton, who gave us an account from BNE’s perspective.
Both Reimer and Canton noted that the apparatus had shut down automatically after the malfunction. The problem, said Reimer, was rectified by 2:00 p.m. on Friday.
He said that a consultant, Jim Cavanaugh, had advised them that it is not a matter of “if a spill will happen” but “when,” Now, with last week’s crude oil spray, there are deeper fears.
“It is a nuisance, and warning of the big one we hope that never comes,” said Reimer.
Responding to the community’s fears of possibly worse to come, Canton told us that he does not expect that anything worse will happen.
According to Reimer, Spanish Lookouts residents are still cleaning up the droplets that had settled downstream of the flare.
One neighbor who had moved from his home because of the flare operations had returned to do laundry on Friday, January 4, and found droplets of crude on his property – including the vegetation and the house. They spill was not heavy enough to cause an explosion, Reimer said.
Reimer told us that he had called BNE’s headquarters and CEO, Dr. Gilbert Canton, visited the area and promised to pay for the clean up of the crude spray.
Reimer pointed out that community members are not currently trained to handle potential emergencies of this sort, and he now says that their people have to be trained to respond to such accidents.
BNE CEO said the problem has been rectified. Canton told us that Belize Water Services (BWS) was also brought in to test a nearby water supply reservoir for the poultry industry, which had crude droplets, and they found nothing wrong with the water.
Canton said that BNE did an assessment on Friday afternoon. He said that they also called the Department of the Environment (DOE), which asked BNE to submit a report about the incident. Canton said that they are now in the process of doing so.
As to BNE’s compliance with environmental laws, CEO Canton said that though BNE has never submitted an EIA for the Spanish Lookout operations, they have been conducting environmental audits and environmental strategic assessments, and have prepared environmental checklists for various stages of work.
In a previous interview with our newspaper the Chief Environmental Officer, Martin Allegria, had told us that since an EIA was not produced before production began, the aforementioned assessments/audits would have been required of BNE.
Canton said that BNE plans to move a portion of its Spanish Lookout operations away from residential areas. Particularly to alleviate the situation in Spanish Lookout, BNE plans to channel all the oil from its five Spanish Lookout wells to a central site in the vicinity of the quarry, about three to four miles from the center of Spanish Lookout.
Canton asserted that there would be failures in operations, but their focus is on mitigating and minimizing.
He said that a recent spillage of five gallons of oil offshore from a barge transporting BNE oil, was quickly remedied with a safety boom and spill rods.
The community members at Spanish Lookout never chose to live in an oil field, said Reimer, but it is something they now have to live with.
Though the community has yet to be paid royalties by the Government, they have seen some economic benefits in the form of job creation, commerce and the limited use of Belize crude at an economical rate for tractors and power generators.
“We would give up the economic benefits to preserve our social life,” said Reimer.