I have been on sev­er­al hikes to vis­it var­i­ous sites sur­round­ing the charm­ing Cumaca vil­lage, in­clud­ing the sul­phur springs, the oil bird caves and the Tu­rure Riv­er. I have al­so tak­en sev­er­al of my for­eign friends to these pris­tine, well-kept se­crets of na­ture and they were amazed at the beau­ty of my coun­try, but al­so sur­prised that a sand and grav­el com­pa­ny is al­lowed to op­er­ate in Cumaca con­sid­er­ing the ob­vi­ous detri­men­tal im­pacts to the en­vi­ron­ment.

This caused me to speak to the vil­lagers of Cumaca about this quar­ry in an at­tempt to shine light on its ac­tiv­i­ties. The vil­lagers shared sim­i­lar views on the way the quar­ry was be­ing run. The gen­er­al con­sen­sus was that the road lead­ing to the quar­ry (which is bare­ly pass­able even with a four-wheel­er) has been se­vere­ly de­grad­ed by the quar­ry trucks and that the Tu­rure Riv­er is be­ing silt­ed dai­ly by runoff from the quar­ry ac­tiv­i­ties.

This riv­er is home to many aquat­ic species of plants and an­i­mals and pro­vides wa­ter for vil­lagers of Cumaca. In ad­di­tion, vil­lagers said the road had been widened to ac­com­mo­date the huge trucks and earth-mov­ing equip­ment. In­ter­est­ing­ly, on the day of my vis­it, a truck was dis­pos­ing of diesel in­to a drain near­by, which quick­ly fil­tered in­to a near­by riv­er.

The vil­lagers al­so said the own­er of the quar­ry had been ap­proached in an at­tempt to speak to him re­gard­ing the ac­tiv­i­ties but that he re­fused to see them. The quar­ry op­er­a­tions do not on­ly con­stant­ly de­grade the road which makes trans­port to sev­er­al hous­es and the Cumaca Pri­ma­ry School dif­fi­cult, but the com­pa­ny makes no at­tempt to give back to the com­mu­ni­ty which still does not have elec­tric­i­ty and sev­er­al oth­er ba­sic ameni­ties.

Dur­ing an­oth­er re­cent vis­it to this area, it seemed to me that fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of this quar­ry is tak­ing place and I am call­ing on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, me­dia per­son­nel and the pub­lic at large to take note, take ac­tion and en­sure that these acts against the en­vi­ron­ment do not con­tin­ue.

I agree that a bal­ance is nec­es­sary and that the Quar­ry As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T pro­vides em­ploy­ment and a much-need­ed com­mod­i­ty but as the late Prof Julien Ken­ny said, these de­vel­op­ers must be made to at least min­imise the im­pacts on the en­vi­ron­ment.

I ask read­ers to pay spe­cial at­ten­tion to the vil­lagers of Cumaca-who are un­able to plead their own case and who are cry­ing out for help-and to en­sure that the com­pa­ny op­er­at­ing there im­ple­ments ap­pro­pri­ate mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures to en­sure that its ac­tiv­i­ties leave but a min­i­mum foot­print on this trin­ket of par­adise.