Classes disrupted at San Fernando East Secondary after oil spill

Rad­hi­ca de Sil­va 

Class­es at San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School were dis­rupt­ed on Fri­day as Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed con­tin­ued clean-up op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing an oil spill on the school com­pound.

Work­ers were seen car­ry­ing out mop-up ac­tiv­i­ties af­ter a leak from a trunk pipeline in the area. The clean-up forced the clo­sure of the school, rais­ing con­cern among par­ents and res­i­dents about the po­ten­tial im­pact on stu­dents and staff.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, res­i­dent Sta­cy Archibald said she was wor­ried about the prox­im­i­ty of the oil line to the school.

“I live in this area and I’m very con­cerned be­cause the oil line is run­ning straight to the school,” she said. “We have young chil­dren go­ing there every day and we don’t know about these things, so it is very dan­ger­ous.”

Archibald said homes and a plaza are lo­cat­ed near the af­fect­ed area, in­creas­ing the risk to the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

“It have hous­es close by and chil­dren walk­ing all over. It is very dan­ger­ous and I’m very con­cerned. We don’t know what the next wave will do for us be­cause chil­dren will be miss­ing out on school. It will be a lack of ed­u­ca­tion. We want to know what’s go­ing on,” she added.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Sher­ry Del­con, who lives op­po­site the school along Ma­hogany Av­enue, said she was un­sure why there were no class­es.

“I have a niece go­ing to school here, but I see it have no school to­day. I don’t know why. I hear they say it have an oil leak, so I don’t know what’s go­ing on,” she said.

Del­con said she first no­ticed signs of the leak a few days ago but had not been told how long class­es would be af­fect­ed.

“They didn’t say when it’s go­ing to be re­turn­ing back to school,” she said. “I think it is some­thing se­ri­ous and they need to do some­thing about that very soon. That’s a haz­ard for the kids go­ing to school there. That is some­thing very se­ri­ous.”

In a state­ment, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um con­firmed it re­spond­ed to a leak on a trunk pipeline lo­cat­ed on the com­pound of the San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School.

The com­pa­ny said the school was closed in the in­ter­est of en­sur­ing the safe­ty of all stake­hold­ers.

Her­itage added that it con­tin­ues to work close­ly with rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to ad­dress the mat­ter prompt­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly.

“The safe­ty and well-be­ing of stu­dents, staff, and the wider com­mu­ni­ty re­main our high­est pri­or­i­ty,” the com­pa­ny said.