RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A Tabaquite fam­i­ly is call­ing on the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty to ur­gent­ly re­lo­cate a chick­en farm built di­rect­ly op­po­site their home—an op­er­a­tion they say has left them ill, iso­lat­ed, and liv­ing in “prison-like” con­di­tions for years.

Resh­mi Per­sad, who lives at John Trace, Broth­ers Road, New Grant, with her par­ents Moolchan and Bhag­wan­daye Per­sad, and her four-year-old daugh­ter, said the struc­ture was ini­tial­ly in­tro­duced to res­i­dents as a green­house. But when gal­vanised sheet­ings be­gan ar­riv­ing, Per­sad said the fam­i­ly re­alised a chick­en farm was be­ing built mere me­tres from their home.

Since then, Per­sad said she has made re­lent­less ap­peals to pub­lic health of­fi­cials, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), Town and Coun­try Plan­ning, the Om­buds­man’s Of­fice, and oth­er agen­cies to no avail. She said her re­quest has al­ways been the same: re­lo­cate the farm fur­ther down on the own­er’s land, away from res­i­den­tial homes.

“This farm has caused hav­oc in our lives. We are liv­ing like pris­on­ers in­side this house,” Per­sad cried. “We have to tape up the win­dows be­cause the smell comes through every tiny crease. My four-year-old sleeps right there, and the AC pulls in every­thing.”

She ex­plained that their sec­tion of the road­way is clas­si­fied as res­i­den­tial, while the farm sits on agri­cul­tur­al land. De­spite this, Per­sad said the in­tense odours, dust, and pres­ence of cor­beaux have made dai­ly liv­ing un­bear­able—es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing rain and high winds when the stench be­comes “hor­rif­ic”.

Per­sad’s moth­er, Bhag­wan­daye, who pre­vi­ous­ly on­ly man­aged hy­per­ten­sion, said she has now be­come se­vere­ly asth­mat­ic. She re­ceives treat­ment at both the San Fer­nan­do and Mount Hope chest clin­ics. Per­sad be­lieves the con­stant dust and odour from the farm trig­gered her moth­er’s res­pi­ra­to­ry de­cline.

“Some­times she’s gasp­ing for breath. I had to buy a neb­u­lis­er be­cause the near­est health cen­tre is far, and we can’t wait when she gets chest pains and breath­ing prob­lems,” she said.

Her daugh­ter, now four, al­so falls ill fre­quent­ly.

“My con­cern is—will she start life with a lung dis­ease be­cause of this? She can­not play out­side, can­not ride her bike, and can­not even en­joy a pool day. We can­not cel­e­brate any­thing at our home.”

Per­sad said she and sev­er­al vil­lagers ini­tial­ly signed a pe­ti­tion, but many asked for con­fi­den­tial­i­ty out of fear. She said ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 res­i­dents in the im­me­di­ate area are af­fect­ed. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed, the stench was present at the Per­sad’s res­i­dence, but not in the pens where the own­er took us on a tour. In­side the pen was well ven­ti­lat­ed, and bar­ri­ers had been erect­ed to keep away the dust. The own­er said all ap­provals had been grant­ed by the rel­e­vant par­ties, and af­ter mak­ing a hefty in­vest­ment, re­lo­ca­tion was not an op­tion. He said on­ly the Per­sad fam­i­ly was com­plain­ing, not­ing that he had pushed back the farm 85 feet from the road­way and had erect­ed all pos­si­ble pre­cau­tions to min­imise the ef­fects.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, the chair­man of the EMA, Doolar Ram­lal, said he would ini­ti­ate an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the com­plaints.