RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hun­dreds of acres of for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Ltd sug­ar­cane lands stretch­ing from St Madeleine to Pic­ton are be­ing cleared, prompt­ing res­i­dents and farm­ers to spec­u­late that the area could be ear­marked for hous­ing, agri­cul­ture or the pro­posed Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) Da­ta Cen­tre.

Lands and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein yes­ter­day sought to clar­i­fy the spec­u­la­tion, say­ing the lands at Pe­tite Morne 2 and 3 are be­ing de­vel­oped in­to res­i­den­tial lots for for­mer Ca­roni work­ers who were de­nied their dues un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ho­sein said the PNM chose to spend hun­dreds of mil­lions fight­ing for­mer Ca­roni work­ers in court in­stead of giv­ing them their lands.

For the past two weeks, ex­ca­va­tors and trac­tors have been re­mov­ing veg­e­ta­tion across the rolling hills over­look­ing Pe­tite Morne, Ridge­wood Gar­dens, Gol­con­da and Pic­ton.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, sev­er­al res­i­dents said they had been told the AI cen­tre was com­ing.

Pres­i­dent of the Ridge­wood Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Group, Deb­o­rah Lewis-Di­az, said the ab­sence of of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion had cre­at­ed un­cer­tain­ty.

“There has been a lot of clear­ing over the past cou­ple of weeks. Peo­ple were cul­ti­vat­ing por­tions of the land, but now heavy equip­ment has cleared al­most every­thing. We don’t want to spec­u­late whether it is a da­ta cen­tre or some­thing else. We sim­ply want the Gov­ern­ment to come and tell us what is hap­pen­ing.”

Lewis-Di­az said res­i­dents were al­so con­cerned af­ter hear­ing claims that farm­ers had lost crops dur­ing the clear­ing ex­er­cise.

If the project is in­deed an AI da­ta cen­tre, Lewis-Di­az said res­i­dents want as­sur­ances about its en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact.

“There are con­cerns about the heat, the con­stant noise, and where the wa­ter will come from to cool such a fa­cil­i­ty. Peo­ple just want peace of mind. If it is a da­ta cen­tre, tell us. If it’s hous­ing, tell us. We de­serve to know.”

Among those af­fect­ed was Ridge­wood Gar­dens res­i­dent Sal­isha Khan, who said she and her sis­ters in­vest­ed their sav­ings in­to farm­ing af­ter los­ing their jobs fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the URP and CEPEP pro­grammes.

Stand­ing be­side rows of pep­pers, co­conuts and oth­er crops, Khan fought back tears as she de­scribed watch­ing trac­tors move clos­er to the fam­i­ly’s gar­dens.

“We’ve been plant­i­ng here for over two years. We in­vest­ed our lit­tle sav­ings in plants, fer­tilis­er and soil. Our crops were al­most ready to har­vest, and now we don’t know if every­thing will be de­stroyed.”

Khan al­leged that con­trac­tors burned near­by veg­e­ta­tion on Tues­day night, forc­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers to ex­tin­guish the flames be­fore they spread to their crops.

She said many un­em­ployed fam­i­lies who had turned to farm­ing now fear los­ing their on­ly source of in­come.

Her hus­band, Keron Bap­tiste, al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to ex­plain the pur­pose of the clear­ing.

Debe res­i­dent De­vi­ka Ram­per­sad said she would wel­come the in­vest­ment if it gen­er­at­ed em­ploy­ment.

“If it’s the AI cen­tre, I would be hap­py be­cause this area needs jobs. But what­ev­er the project is, the Gov­ern­ment should tell peo­ple. The spec­u­la­tion has gone on long enough.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced that Trinidad and To­ba­go had signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing with the Unit­ed States for two AI da­ta cen­tres, while Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath lat­er said the fa­cil­i­ty would be lo­cat­ed on State lands in Debe near the spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone. How­ev­er, the ex­act lo­ca­tion has not been of­fi­cial­ly iden­ti­fied.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Oropouche MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence Do­minic Smith and Min­is­ter Padarath, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj said he would in­ves­ti­gate first be­fore is­su­ing a re­sponse.