Dear Editor,
I admit that it is neither Sherlock Holmes nor John Grisham. It certainly has elements of the Pandora Papers, though. I speak of the mystery of the single barrel oil spill in Guyanese waters. Whatever it is, Guyanese now have a full-length thriller to keep them on their toes, as they try to decipher whodunit, what was done, if anything at all.
I put on my thinking cap, and come to this conclusion: oil was spilled, as the people at the points of intersection and regurgitation themselves admit. That’s the easy part. For my part, it is not the mere matter of a solitary barrel of 42 US gallons of crude, but how many more of both. Look, to tell this nation that there was an oil spill involving one barrel (one only) of light, sweet crude, and that is the beginning and end of the story relays that something is amiss.
Currently, Denmark is still clean, but it is the state of Georgetown about which I am troubled. Part of the mystery is that it is taking so long, such an extended
number of weeks now around double-digits, for citizens to get a word about what and how much of it occurred out there. If it is, indeed, only one barrel of oil spilled, then there may be the most ordinary of explanations: there is difficulty tracing the precise point of the leak; or that with only 42 gallons to track, it has all been gobbled up, overwhelmed and disappeared with a speck of a fleck showing up anywhere.
I agree it would be more time consuming and dogged detective work in the probe for spots and slicks on the vast oceanic waters. And, of course, the same being said for any slips of men and machines. These things take time, and all Guyanese should be patient in waiting to hear what Exxon and the EPA come up with in what now amounts to secrets of the aquatic depths. That is, of course, if they come up with anything at all.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall