Geisha Kow­lessar

CEO of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) Dr Joth Singh says Home Con­struc­tion Ltd will face penal­ties for breach­ing a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) and build­ing a sump, for which no per­mis­sion was grant­ed. Singh said yes­ter­day that a team from the EMA is ex­pect­ed to vis­it San­ta Rosa West to­day to en­sure HCL has com­plied with the in­struc­tions of the EMA. This, in wake of a lead poi­son­ing threat at The Cross­ings at San­ta Rose West, a res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ment with a pop­u­la­tion of thou­sands. Singh, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, said from all in­di­ca­tions HCL would be fac­ing penal­ties, as the com­pa­ny had breached the leg­is­la­tion re­lat­ing to the CEC. "The HCL was al­so not giv­en per­mis­sion to con­struct the sump at the side of the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed site," said Singh. A sump col­lects un­want­ed liq­uids such as wa­ter or chem­i­cals. "This sump was to be used for the ex­cess wa­ter of the com­mu­ni­ty which ex­pe­ri­ences flood­ing...the HCL went ahead and con­struct­ed this, and now they have to face the penal­ty." The EMA team, Singh added, would be seek­ing to en­sure that HCL had fenced off the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed area and put up the nec­es­sary warn­ing signs to alert the com­mu­ni­ty and mem­bers of the pub­lic. Singh said he ex­pect­ed to get the re­sults from the Caribbean In­dus­tri­al Re­search In­sti­tute (Cariri) to­day and as­sured they would be made avail­able to the pub­lic. He said on the ba­sis of those re­sults the EMA will de­cide on a course of ac­tion. On the amount the HCL will have to shell out to pay the penal­ties, Singh could not give a def­i­nite fig­ure, adding, "That would be dif­fi­cult to say now. It is cal­cu­lat­ed by our lawyers and based on sever­i­ty, time and will­ing­ness to act to cor­rect the breach."

No con­t­a­m­i­na­tion-coun­cil­lor

Coun­cil­lor for Tumpuna Hugo Lewis does not be­lieve con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wa­ter is seep­ing or be­ing pumped in­to the Ari­ma riv­er. The San­ta Rosa West mat­ter was first raised by Pa­pa Bois Con­ser­va­tion (PBC), an en­vi­ron­men­tal ad­vo­ca­cy group, which ex­pressed con­cern that an en­cap­su­lat­ed lead-con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed site in the area might have been bro­ken by HCL's con­struc­tion work in the dis­trict and poi­son may have leaked in­to the Ari­ma Riv­er, a source of potable wa­ter. Lewis, who vis­it­ed the area at 11 am yes­ter­day said, "It is clear in my mind (that from) where the re­ten­tion wa­ter is be­ing pumped in­to the riv­er; it did not come from the area that was breached." He said this opin­ion was based on the pre­lim­i­nary find­ings of a re­port by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), which was deemed in­con­clu­sive. The EMA has con­tract­ed Cariri to con­duct an in-depth in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine whether the breach of the con­crete lead cap has re­sult­ed in the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the im­me­di­ate en­vi­ron­ment. Wa­ter, sed­i­ments and soil sam­ples will be test­ed for lead lev­els. Lewis said the wa­ter flow­ing in­to the Ari­ma riv­er was the usu­al run off wa­ter from drains at The Cross­ings at San­ta Rosa West. "This is the nor­mal flow-out wa­ter from the com­mu­ni­ty drainage with­in The Cross­ings."

He added, how­ev­er, that the Ari­ma Bor­ough Coun­cil will have con­crete an­swers once Cariri has com­plet­ed all the tests. "We got in­for­ma­tion from the EMA which was in­con­clu­sive. "So we are await­ing the re­sults from Cariri. Then we would know for sure what re­al­ly is the sit­u­a­tion." Lewis said in the ini­tial re­me­di­a­tion of the lead-con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed site for the de­vel­op­ment, HCL had treat­ed and sta­bilised the lead on site and capped the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed area us­ing con­crete and a geo-tex­tile lay­er (thick non-biodegrad­able plas­tic used to form a wa­ter bar­ri­er), which would have neu­tralised the tox­ins. He said the fact that no res­i­dent had fall­en ill was a good in­di­ca­tion that no con­t­a­m­i­na­tion had oc­curred. Lewis said HCL had con­tract­ed a com­pa­ny called Kaizen to do the re­me­di­al work on the site which would as­sist in al­le­vi­at­ing res­i­dents' fears. Lewis added that HCL was await­ing the re­sults from Cariri for the re­me­di­al work to be ex­e­cut­ed. Marc Lau­rent de Ver­teuil, who heads Pa­pa Bois Con­ser­va­tion, said he vis­it­ed the site over the week­end and there was no ev­i­dence of the lead be­ing con­tained and no tar­pau­lin to pre­vent dust from blow­ing out of the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed site. Lewis, how­ev­er, said even if a tar­pau­lin was placed on the site, wa­ter and gas­es would still seep out.

The coun­cil­lor said the WASA in­take point was at least15 kilo­me­tres down­stream from the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed area. "That is an im­por­tant fac­tor, be­cause it is a sig­nif­i­cant dis­tance, and it does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean the stream wa­ter is be­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with lead." He al­so urged res­i­dents not to be caught in pan­ic mode. "This is a very del­i­cate sit­u­a­tion and we are urg­ing res­i­dents not to pan­ic." Ari­ma may­or Ghas­san Youseph is to vis­it San­ta Rosa West to­day. He said all ef­forts were be­ing made to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion as soon as pos­si­ble, and that he had been look­ing in­to the mat­ter "from day one." "From the day I found out about this I was on it. We have a new dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer, Dr Hay­den Mo­hammed, on board, and I sent him to look at the site. "I went to the site again on Sat­ur­day and I have been in close con­tact with all my coun­cil­lors."