Environment Management Authority (EMA) chairman Dr Allan Bachan says it will open a post very soon in Valencia to address illegal quarrying. Bachan, addressing a joint select committee in Parliament on Friday, however, admitted he was still waiting for police to be assigned to assist the authority there.
He told the JSC, which was chaired by Senator Elton Prescott, that the EMA had received approval for the re-assignment of officers to the post, but was still waiting for acting Commissioner Stephen Williams to assign them. The issue of quarrying was also raised at the EMA’s last appearance before the JSC in July. At that session Bachan said the EMA needed 100 more police officers, since most of the work it did was very sensitive and in some instances had led to death threats.
At Friday’s hearing, Bachan, together with EMA director Phillip Vilain, technical director Hayden Romano and environmental manager David Persad, re-appeared before the JSC to address questions about its policies and procedures.
He stressed that the issue of illegal quarrying and the protection of natural resources is a major concern for the authority. He said the EMA had been collaborating with other state agencies, including the Energy and Energy Affairs Ministry, to address quarrying and the environmental degradation of the Northern Range. Bachan did not say how many police officers the EMA had asked for.
Contacted by the T&T Guardian, Williams said the EMA had asked for support. “We have given the undertaking that we will provide Special Reserve Police (SRP) to assist with the policing aspect and before the end of the year they will receive some of the officers that they have requested,” Williams said.
Bachan: We have many challenges
The EMA chairman admitted the authority was challenged in many ways to effectively carry out its duties. He said apart from limited manpower, the very legislation it has to operate creates a challenge. In fact, Bachan said, the current legislation is “soft.” “When the EMA Act came into being it was intended to be soft legislation. So it is cheaper to pollute and break the law than to follow good practice. It is one of the issues we have recognised,” Bachan said.
He said the air pollution rules and water pollution rules were being revised to make them more relevant and strong. The EMA, he said, has no laboratory and this, he said, makes it difficult for the authority to address complaints about pollution. Companies seeking licences to pollute have to do their own tests for three years and provide the information to the EMA to be granted a licence to pollute.
“It is unacceptable to say someone is providing data on themselves. It should be the responsibility for us to assess the tests. The legislation has not worked for us to ensure the proper protection of the environment,” Bachan said. Small budgetary allocations, he said, also prevented the EMA from being effective. He said it often had to rent equipment to do tests because the money it was allocated was not enough to buy equipment.
Tourism Minister Gerald Hadeed raised the issue of the five dead sea turtles that were entangled in gill nets this week and asked why the EMA had not stopped the use of such nets, which have been banned around the world. But Dr Amery Browne said in all fairness to the EMA, banning gill nets in T&T must be a government policy decision and cannot be a decision taken by a regulatory authority.
Bachan announced that the EMA intended to establish an office in Tobago to deal with environmental complaints there. He also said it would soon launch an environmental hotline and an environmental channel.