About eighty per cent of the oil spilled from the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Kingston power complex has been mopped up as the utility company continues to work closely under directives of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Senior Environmental Officer at the EPA, Odessa Duncan, told Stabroek News that the company has requested an extension in order to complete the cleanup of spill which occurred in mid-May.
She noted that the EPA has been monitoring and evaluating the progress made by the company during its cleanup efforts.
Executive Director of the EPA, Vincent Adams, in a previous report had told Stabroek News that his agency is working with the company to implement a long-term solution to the problem.
Meanwhile, Duncan disclosed to this newspaper that they are currently working with GPL to certify its operations.
Approximately 16 of GPL’s locations require environmental authorisation for their activities. She explained that they have begun processing the applications and will soon conduct site visits to carry out verification and inspection along with collecting samples to check for contamination of fluids that might have spilled into the environment. She also explained that this is a continuous assessment as all of GPL’s operating sites will have to be individually certified.
Duncan added that the utility company had to hire a ground structure consultant to overlook the implementation of the measures to reach the EPA’s environmental operating standards.
In addition to this, the Senior Environmental Officer noted that the company is also installing an incinerator to treat its waste oil management. On this note, she explained that before this becomes operable, the EPA will have to ensure that it is compliant and will also have to conduct a test burn before granting approval.
In May, a quantity of fuel from GPL’s Kingston complex seeped into the Demerara River and the company’s Public Relations Officer Shevon Sears had explained that after the discovery, GPL’s personnel expedited industry-standard safety, health, and environmental procedures to contain the spill. She assured the general public that GPL’s efforts to contain the spill have thus far proven successful.
Adams explained that from preliminary investigations, it is suspected that fuel spilled from an aged storage tank.
“What we think happened is that these large oil storage tanks in the compound have aged and the oil began leaking from the bottom coming up. We are trying to figure out what exactly happened. I spoke with the Chairman, Rawle Lucas, and have been speaking with him since. So they are in process of emptying the tank to see what it looks like at the bottom. We also don’t know how much oil is spilled…” Adams had related. Adams, nonetheless had remarked that this can be a learning lesson for GPL on the type and quality of maintenance that needs to be done on the storage tanks.
