SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union: A Chevron underwater fuel pipeline seeped while a ship was unloading its diesel oil cargo into the pipeline at San Fernando City Port in Poro Point yesterday, alarming residents here.

City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) personnel Sally Medrano, who rushed to the scene with Acting City Mayor Herminigildo Gualberto, said this morning that they are still waiting for an official statement from Chevron Oil officials from Manila after calling them up yesterday.

“We are trying to contain an oil spill,” Medrano said in a telephone interview, and added that the CENRO, Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Region 1, the Philippine Coast Guard, Poro barangay officials and residents, helped each other yesterday in scooping oil that oozed as far as the shorelines of Sitios Tawi-Tawi and Banks to the Old Poro and Philex areas, all located along the Poro Point coastline.

Medrano said that they were using steel booms and even pails to ladle oil from the water. “We are still evaluating the volume of oil that had spilled out.”

A Flying V underwater oil pipeline at the same pier also leaked in the past but has been repaired.
A resident nearby who refused to be identified said that he went to help to prevent what could be “a disastrous oil spill” and added that they would sell what they have collected from the spill.