Keep in mind that our mangroves and marshes tend to have higher Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) rankings due to the potentially long-lasting and damaging effects of both the oil contamination and cleanup actions. Also, our more permeable (porous) limestone substrates have a higher ESI ranking due to the slower speed at which natural processes will remove the oil. The damage has been done and we have a right to be compensated for having to live with its effects for years to come. We also have a right to receive assurances that steps will be taken to ensure the same thing does not happen when the next major hurricane visits the storage facility.

And why haven't The Tribune's investigative reporters made any serious inquiries into what our government has learned about the type and extent of insurance coverage Equinor/Statoil had in place for such a hurricane caused major oil spill occurring at their Grand Bahama storage facility???!!!

> Virtually all the Bahamas' international financial centre (IFC) rivals possess their own aircraft registries, too, meaning that this nation is again lagging the competition when it comes to products and services demanded by its target market.

The one sentence quoted immediately above says it all. Few nations can beat the Bahamas when it comes to "lagging"!

Amen! The right people finally seem to have come to their senses. Joining the WTO would never have been good for The Bahamas (in fact harmful) for all too many well known very good reasons.

> The FNM took "ownership" of the matter when Mr Wells swapped sides to join it, yet to this day neither he nor anyone else involved has explained to the Bahamian people exactly what happened.

There's only one take away from this saga:

Wells, having found that he could not extort Christie and therefore would never be able to
partake in any inner circle PLP pie sharing, decided he had nothing to lose when Minnis
promised him he would be able to partake in pie sharing of the FNM inner circle if and when the FNM became the next government. Wells's defection gamble paid off.

You miss my point. They need to devote more space in their newspaper to the more important local news and less space to the international space filler stuff. Readers can get the international stuff in countless other places, but not the local stuff. Problem is, The Tribune is too damn cheap (or can't afford) to put good reporters on the ground in Grand Bahama and Abaco for an extended period of time. In the case of Abaco, they will need to draw straws because volunteers to go there for an extended period will not be plentiful. But I do like the idea of chillin' more.

Most of these complaining illegal Haitian aliens have grown too accustomed to receiving over many years social welfare, health and education benefits that have been doled out to them and their family members like candy by our current and past spendthrift governments. And all at the expense of the vast majority of overburdened Bahamian taxpayers who are struggling in their own right.

> MORE than 100,000 barrels of oil - five million gallons - was spilled at the Equinor South Riding Point facility in East Grand Bahama during Hurricane Dorian, Environment Minister Romauld Ferreira said yesterday.

No one in the oil industry, especially the oil storage and transhipment business, talks about the volume of oil in terms of gallons as opposed to barrels. A standard barrel contains 42 gallons of crude oil. There could be only one reason for Equinor/Statoil and its representatives choosing to frequently refer to gallons rather than barrels and that's to create the impression they have acknowleged a large spill when in fact the actual spill was very much larger. Five million (5,000,000) gallons naturally sounds like a lot more than 119,000 barrels but that figure of 119,000 is likely greatly understated simply because monetary damages for such major oil spills is usually assessed based on the number of barrels spilled into the environment.

By Equinor/Statoil's own admission, the storage tanks at the facility were holding 1.8 million barrels of oil at the time of Dorian's arrival. Aerial photos and aerial video taken of the facility in the immediate aftermath of Dorian and posted all over social media clearly show that many of the tanks were severely breached (several had their dome tops completely blown off and away) and that a large amount of oil had spilled into the surrounding areas and possibly into the sea. The tanks were left holding nowhere near a total of 1.8 million barrels of oil which means most of it spilled into the surrounding environment and likely the sea as well. Some of the tanks which had been full were quite visibly left nearly empty after Dorian passed. To say only 119,000 barrels spilled into the environment strains credibility to say the least.

Obviously there was a failure to ensure the storage tanks could withstand sustained wind forces from a category 5+ major hurricane even though it has been well known for more than two decades now that such hurricanes have been whizzing about our area of the world with ever increasing frequency, intensity and severity. Equinor/Statoil must be made to bear full responsibilty for this environmental disaster. They must be held not only fully accountable for the cleanup effort, but also for all long term damages to the environment, wild life and health of Bahamians in the area by way of an appropriate financial settlement. At the moment there seems to be every indication that a 'cover up investigation' is well underway with our corrupt government's blessing.

We've had way too many years of dreadful prime ministers who have put loyalty to their own interests and the interests of their political party way ahead of the interests of the Bahamian people and our country. Minnis has proven himself to be just another very disappointing example of such a dreadful prime minister.

Does The Tribune's chief editor really think all of this rubbish about U.S. politics and a former mayor of NYC is more important than what's going on (or should I say, not going on) in Grand Bahama and Abaco at the moment in the aftermath of Dorian? Let the U.S. news media outlets cover this nonsense. The Tribune should be putting more reporters on the ground in Eastern Grand Bahama and Central Abaco and taking our government to task for its many shortcomings to date in addressing important Dorian-related matters.

By Equinor/Statoil's own admission, the storage tanks at the facility were holding 1.8 million barrels of oil at the time of Dorian's arrival. Aerial photos and aerial video taken of the facility in the immediate aftermath of Dorian and posted all over social media clearly show that many of the tanks were severely breached (several had their dome tops completely blown off and away) and that a large amount of oil had spilled into the surrounding areas and possibly into the sea. The tanks were left holding nowhere near a total of 1.8 million barrels of oil which means most of it spilled into the surrounding environment and likely the sea as well. Obviously there was a failure to ensure the storage tanks could withstand sustained wind forces from a category 5+ major hurricane even though it has been well known for more than two decades now that such hurricanes have been whizzing about our area of the world with ever increasing frequency, intensity and severity. Equinor/Statoil must be made to bear full responsibilty for this environmental disaster. They must be held not only fully accountable for the cleanup/restoration effort, but also for all damages to the environment, wild life and health of Bahamians in the area by way of an appropriate financial settlement. At the moment there seems to be every indication that a 'cover up investigation' is well underway with our corrupt government's blessing.