Redberry, CHEC tussle over dust dilemma
Published:Tuesday | June 29, 2021 | 12:10 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Staff Reporter
Some residents of Redberry in Manchester have complained that despite lobbying China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) to address the dust nuisance in their community, very little has been done to ease the problem.
Olivia Miller, a resident of Redberry, told The Gleaner last Friday that the dust from the Highway 2000 project continues to be a major concern for the community.
Miller said that the developers of the highway have said that they would not be compensating residents for dust nuisance.
Many residents in Redberry say they have had no water in their pipes for weeks and have had to harvest rainwater in drums and other containers. However, they claim that the dust emanating from the highway project has contaminated the water they catch for household use.
“The people have their drums and the dust would settle in their drums,” said Miller, noting that the “safety net” used by the developers to block the dust from their homes was woefully inadequate.
Residents said that they are not against the construction of the highway but complained that their grievances are not being sufficiently addressed.
Another resident from Redberry who did not want to be named in this article said that after complaining bitterly about the dust nuisance, she was given a black tank which was in a deplorable condition.
Promises of a replacement, since October 2020, have not been honoured, she said.
“When that black drum came it had dirt, water and bush. It has a big hole in the top; there is no cover,” the resident said.
“We were complaining about the dust and we get our drinking water from the roof, so they say they would give us a drum and have it filled from time to time.”
Householders showed a Gleaner news team heavy dust they claimed had settled in their homes in a matter of hours.
One disgruntled resident whose house was close to the highway said she asked to be relocated but her pleas fell on deaf ears.
Valton Simpson, environment, health and safety engineer at CHEC, told The Gleaner on Monday that there was “no justification for compensation for dust nuisance”.
Simpson said there was no allowance in the contract between CHEC and the Government of Jamaica for dust compensation to be paid to any party.
CHEC has been implementing a number of dust-mitigation measures, said Simpson, in line with recommendations of the environmental impact assessment (EIA), the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) permit, and the approved project’s environmental management plan.
Simpson said that the company has imposed measures such as frequent wetting, five to eight times a day; erected dust screens at various receptor locations that interface with the project; and conducted monthly monitoring of air quality to ensure that the NEPA benchmark was not exceeded over a 24-hour period.
The health and safety engineer said that to date, the NEPA-recommended standard and ambient dust baseline reading (dust measurement taken prior to the commencement of construction activities) have not been exceeded.
Commenting on reports of dust contamination of stormwater harvested from the roof of buildings, Simpson said that CHEC had donated four large Rhino tanks to the residents of Redberry through their political representatives.
“These tanks have been strategically positioned in the community and are refilled weekly by CHEC and the Manchester Municipal Corporation,” he said.