Effluent clampdown
Gov’t to craft legislation that bans toxic discharge into rivers; proposed fines to increase from $50,000 to $10m ceiling
Published:Saturday | March 23, 2024 | 12:10 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Parliamentary Reporter
THE GOVERNMENT is taking steps to ban the discharge of effluent into the Rio Cobre with the development of legislation to tackle the vexed issue.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced on Thursday that he has given instructions to the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) to develop a policy to ban the release of effluent into the river.
“There are some factories and operations which do have permission to discharge. What we are looking for is to prevent any discharge into the Rio Cobre,” Holness said while making his contribution to the 2024/2025 Budget Debate in Parliament.
He said that the government could not issue a stop order on the factories overnight to cease from discharging the effluent into the Rio Cobre.
Holness said that the government has put in place a new water treatment facility which increases the urgency to protect that body of water.
Environmentalist and chief executive officer of the Jamaica Environment Trust, Dr Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie, said at a recent public lecture series that the Rio Cobre supplied between 30 and 40 per cent of the freshwater to Spanish Town and other communities in St Catherine. The river is also a key source of irrigation water for farmers.
She reported that a significant amount of the toxic discharge results from industrial activities in the proximity of the large river.
Rodriquez-Moodie warned that the health and sustainability of the island’s rivers would continue to hang in the balance if the authorities did not take decisive action to tackle the challenges ranging from pollution to inadequate enforcement of laws.
On Thursday, the prime minister said the government would be tabling in Parliament amendments to increase the fines in the National Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) Act and the Wild Life Protection Act.
He said the proposal is to increase the fines in both pieces of legislation from a $50,000 ceiling under the NRCA Act and $1.5 million under the Wild Life Protection Act to a $5 million limit in the two laws for individuals, but $10 million for corporate bodies.
Holness said the current fines under both statutes do not act as a deterrent to polluters and rogue developers.
Turning to other environmental issues, the prime minister said that Jamaica will complete its national policy on the environmental sound management of single-use plastics.
Beginning this year, all government facilities will be required to separate waste, in particular plastic waste.
Jamaica will also enter phase four of the ban on some plastic materials on June 1, this year. This phase will include a ban on the manufacture, import and distribution of single-use plastic lunch boxes, and on personal-care products using micro plastics.