Ear­li­er this month, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) launched an ini­tia­tive aimed at ad­dress­ing the is­sue of ex­ces­sive noise–the 24-hour Noise Com­plaint Hot­line. In a no­tice post­ed on its Web site on Jan­u­ary 15, the EMA de­scribed the com­plaint hot­line as "a pub­lic aware­ness strat­e­gy across tra­di­tion­al and non-tra­di­tion­al me­dia, aimed at re­mind­ing cit­i­zens of the detri­men­tal ef­fects ex­ces­sive noise can have on chil­dren, the el­der­ly and the in­firm."

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and CEO of the EMA Dr Joth Singh said the 24-hour hot­line was de­signed to im­prove the re­sponse time from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Po­lice Unit (EPU) as well as to ad­dress as many noise com­plaints as pos­si­ble, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son. A woman who pre­ferred to re­main anony­mous told the T&T Guardian on Jan­u­ary 19 be­tween noon and 1 pm, she made sev­er­al calls to both the hot­line num­bers but all calls went unan­swered.

Her com­plaint was about loud mu­sic com­ing from a par­ty host­ed in a car park in front of Bish­op's Ju­nior School on Ari­api­ta Road in St Ann's. She said she left her friend's St Ann's home at around 3 pm and up to that time the ex­ces­sive noise had not stopped. She said she was dis­ap­point­ed that all at­tempts made to reach the noise com­plaint hot­line had failed.

When the T&T Guardian called one of the hot­line num­bers, PC Ryan Isaac of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Po­lice Unit (EPU) an­swered. He said there would be an of­fi­cer as­signed to an­swer calls at any time dur­ing the day who would take the de­tails of the com­plaint from the caller, then re­lay the mes­sage to a pa­trol of­fi­cer clos­est to the source of the noise.

Isaac said there were three po­lice ve­hi­cles as­signed to the noise pol­lu­tion hot­line, with two to three of­fi­cers in each. One is un­marked while the oth­ers have EMA lo­gos. Cpl Carl Ford, who heads the EPU in Trinidad, said the hot­line re­ceives many calls through­out the day. He said the of­fi­cers who serve as en­vi­ron­men­tal in­spec­tors are po­si­tioned in Port-of-Spain, south and east Trinidad.

While he said they re­ceive re­ports through­out the day, he said calls are most fre­quent on Fri­days, Sat­ur­days and Sun­days. Since the hot­line was set up, he said, no one ac­cused of noise pol­lu­tion has been ar­rest­ed, but on Jan­u­ary 19, en­vi­ron­men­tal con­trol of­fi­cers shut down a par­ty at a bar in San­gre Grande ow­ing to ex­ces­sive noise.

When the T&T Guardian told Ford about the anony­mous caller whose com­plaint calls went unan­swered last week Sat­ur­day, Ford said he could not un­der­stand the rea­son for this. He said of­fi­cers re­spond prompt­ly to all com­plaints made about noise pol­lu­tion at events or par­ties.

In the case of noisy neigh­bours, he said, if an of­fi­cer could not be sent to the lo­ca­tion on the day the com­plaint was is­sued, one would be sent the day af­ter to check up on the sit­u­a­tion. The EMA's noise FAQ book­let says the pre­scribed stan­dards for noise de­pend on the time of day, the du­ra­tion of the emis­sion of sound and the zone in which the event takes place.

Ford said if the noise lev­el at a par­tic­u­lar event ex­ceeds the pre­scribed stan­dards: "We talk to the par­ty pro­mot­er, sound en­gi­neer or who­ev­er, and if they don't com­ply, we stop the event." He said if a per­son host­ing an event is found to be in breach of noise pol­lu­tion con­trol rules, he or she would re­ceive a no­tice of vi­o­la­tion.

In the case of per­sis­tent per­pe­tra­tors who might in­crease the vol­ume of mu­sic speak­ers once the en­vi­ron­men­tal in­spec­tors have left, Ford said the in­spec­tors would some­times ask se­nior po­lice who might be present at par­ties or fetes to mon­i­tor noise lev­els in their ab­sence.

In some in­stances, he said, af­ter is­su­ing the vi­o­la­tion no­tice, the in­spec­tors would re­main close by to en­sure that the noise does not sud­den­ly in­crease in their ab­sence. En­vi­ron­men­tal in­spec­tor of­fi­cers al­so check to en­sure the venue own­er has com­plet­ed the noise vari­a­tion ap­pli­ca­tion process for events.

The ap­pli­cant must fill out a form and pay a $250 pro­cess­ing fee to the EMA. In ad­di­tion to this, a no­tice must be placed in a dai­ly news­pa­per for two con­sec­u­tive days at least 35 days be­fore the event. The EMA's noise hot­line is 628-0609 or 708-8072.