Published On:Monday, June 07, 2010

WHILE the Bahamas could be spared from the oil spill for at least another week due to favourable wind patterns, experts are warning that hydrocarbon poisoning of migrating birds and fish could threaten to destroy the regional environment.

Over the weekend, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) warned that a shift in wind patterns could lead to the oil reaching the Bahamas and Jamaica very soon.

CARICOM said on Saturday that a change in wind could push the oil past the southern tip of Florida and toward its northern member states, the Associated Press reported.

CARICOM Secretary-General Edwin Carrington said the members of the 15-nation group are concerned about how the oil spilling from an underwater well off the US coast will affect the region's tourism industry on which so many of them depend.

However, Neil Armstrong, senior forecaster at the Meteorology Office in Nassau, told The Tribune yesterday that the Bahamas should be safe for the time being.

A high pressure system in the area, he said, is keeping the spill to the north-northeast of the islands.

Mr Armstrong said it is "highly unlikely" that these favourable atmospheric conditions will change for at least another week.

While the actual oil from the Deepwater Horizon/British Petroleum (BP) spill may not reach the waters of the Bahamas for now, experts are warning that because there are no natural nor man-made barriers in place in the ocean to prevent the free movement of marine life, hydrocarbon poisoning of birds and fish migrating from the Gulf of Mexico could have a disastrous affect on the environment.

The Bahamas Maritime Authority (BMA) has called on the United Nation's International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to deploy experts to organise a strategy to combat the spread of regional pollution.

"We are looking for the effect on birds that migrate on the surface of the water and eat the fish (that) may get covered in oil and cannot remove the oil from their feathers, then ingest the oil into their system," said Commander Jeff Ramos of the US Coast Guard and the IMO consultant to the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Information and Training Centre in a press statement.

At risk are more than 400 species, including endangered species, living in the mangrove matrix within the islands and Caribbean ecosystems. About 34,000 birds have been counted including gulls, pelicans, roseate spoonbills, egrets, terns, and blue herons.

"Fish and (other) marine life at the surface will be affected because oil floats on the surface of water. It wouldn't have too much effect to deep water types of fish because they would never go to the surface. Surface fish would be affected because they would ingest the oil into their system," said Commander Ramos.

The oil spill stems from an oil well blowout and explosion that killed 11 platform workers and injured 17 others on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform 50 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

After months of setbacks and unsuccessful containment efforts, BP yesterday reported its first real success with its containment cap.

This latest effort involves a device placed over the leak that sucks up the oil from the bottom of the Gulf. However, the cap so far has only captured 10,000 barrels in a 24-hour period, less than the 12,000 to 25,000 barrels that are estimated to be gushing out of the leaking well on a daily basis.

US government officials estimate that roughly 23 million to 49 million gallons have leaked into the Gulf since April 20.

In the Bahamas, the National Oil Spill Committee presented a detailed disaster management plan devised with two International Maritime Organisation (IMO) experts to committee chairman Captain Patrick O'Neil and National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) director Captain Stephen Russell on Friday.

The committee is expected to meet again tomorrow.