The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) says it has tak­en sev­er­al steps to ad­dress the "scourge of noise pol­lu­tion."

Some of these steps in­clude amend­ments to Rule 2 of the Noise Pol­lu­tion Con­trol which re­duces the time­frame re­quired to mon­i­tor noise lev­els from three hours to thir­ty min­utes and al­so ap­peal­ing a court de­ci­sion that the EMA thinks will set­tle the law in re­la­tion to the pow­er of the EMA and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice to shut down events. 
 Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease from the EMA, noise pol­lu­tion is the num­ber one com­plaint re­ceived via its hot­line and for the year so far, they have re­ceived in ex­cess of 118 com­plaints. 

The full de­tails are be­low:

"The EMA joins with con­cerned cit­i­zens and Colum­nists in con­fir­ma­tion of the se­ri­ous­ness and ex­tent of noise pol­lu­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In­deed, noise pol­lu­tion is a scourge that has been af­flict­ing many so­ci­eties across the world and coun­tries con­tin­ue to seek ways to ad­dress it. In this re­gard, the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Fron­tiers 2022 re­port high­lights noise pol­lu­tion as one of the top emerg­ing is­sues for peo­ple and the plan­et.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is not ex­empt; noise pol­lu­tion con­tin­ues to plague us. In fact, it is the num­ber one com­plaint re­ceived via the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty’s (EMA’s) Com­plaints Hot­line. Thus far, for 2022, the EMA has re­ceived in ex­cess of 118 noise com­plaints and re­spond­ed to 61% of these com­plaints.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, the EMA out­lines be­low sev­er­al re­cent ini­tia­tives to ad­dress the scourge of noise pol­lu­tion:

1. Ap­pealed a High Court de­ci­sion, which is cur­rent­ly be­fore the Court of Ap­peal of Trinidad and To­ba­go name­ly Civ. Ap­peal P133-2021 En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty v. Wild Goose Lim­it­ed which the EMA ex­pects will set­tle the law in re­la­tion to the pow­er of the EMA and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice to shut down events and the cir­cum­stances in which this pow­er should be ex­er­cised;

2. In March 2022, the EMA suc­cess­ful­ly amend­ed Rule 2 of the Noise Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Rules, 2001 (NPCR), thus re­duc­ing the time­frame re­quired to mon­i­tor noise lev­els from three (3) hours to thir­ty (30) min­utes. This amend­ment in­creas­es the EMA’s abil­i­ty to mon­i­tor a larg­er num­ber of events and ac­tiv­i­ties in a giv­en day and gen­er­ate noise lev­el read­ings with greater ef­fi­cien­cy;

3. Is­sued a No­tice of Vi­o­la­tion to the Event Man­agers re­gard­ing the event at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba on 15 May 2022 in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act Chap.35:05;

4. Com­menced a col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ship with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), which saw Heads of all Di­vi­sions of the TTPS present at the in­au­gur­al meet­ing, to boost the EMA’s ef­forts in ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and field train­ing of TTPS of­fi­cers on the use of noise me­tres and clar­i­fy the role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of con­trol­ling noise pol­lu­tion by the TTPS in Trinidad and To­ba­go; and

5. En­gaged in dis­cus­sions with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) to de­ter­mine noise mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies, the in­clu­sion of noise mon­i­tor­ing sta­tions at ma­jor events, for more ro­bust mon­i­tor­ing of noise lev­els and ed­u­ca­tion of mem­bers of the TTPA on noise mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies and com­pli­ance with ex­ist­ing laws gov­ern­ing noise pol­lu­tion.

The EMA has there­fore tak­en af­fir­ma­tive ac­tion to­ward strength­en­ing the leg­isla­tive frame­work and en­gag­ing in di­a­logue with the TTPS and oth­er key stake­hold­ers such as event pro­mot­ers and bar-own­ers and con­tin­ues to ini­ti­ate pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns.

The EMA main­tains its stance that an all-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach is re­quired to fight the scourge of noise pol­lu­tion and is thus mak­ing an ap­peal in tan­dem with the TTPS to fete-pro­mot­ers, event or­ga­niz­ers, bar-own­ers and to the gen­er­al pub­lic to be re­spon­si­ble, civic-mind­ed, and cog­nizant of the dam­ag­ing ef­fects of noise pol­lu­tion."