Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

For three years, two al­leged il­le­gal quar­ries op­er­at­ing near Block 5 in Waller­field, have used Moo­nan Road and oth­er near­by traces and roads as ar­ter­ies trans­port­ing ma­te­r­i­al, dug out from state land, in and out of the area.

Ma­te­ri­als like grav­el, sand and lime­stone are sold for hefty prof­its, tax-free.

And while the op­er­a­tors of the quar­ries are rak­ing in the cash from the op­er­a­tion, res­i­dents of Moo­nan Road are com­plain­ing that the quar­ry op­er­a­tors are, at an in­creas­ing rate, de­stroy­ing the road, kick­ing up plumes of dust, in turn, mak­ing their lives hell.

And that is not all, res­i­dents said they have been threat­ened to give up their farm­land to al­low the op­er­a­tors to ex­pand their busi­ness or else they will face con­se­quences.

In Jan­u­ary, res­i­dents wrote to the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty; the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries; the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice; the Of­fice of the Om­buds­man; and the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands seek­ing as­sis­tance.

In the let­ter, they stat­ed: "We, the res­i­dents of Block 5 Waller­field, Ari­ma, are cur­rent­ly un­der siege by crim­i­nal el­e­ments who are in­volved in il­le­gal min­ing. These il­le­gal min­ing cul­prits have plun­dered gov­ern­ment lands all over east­ern Trinidad and now they are threat­en­ing us to sell parcels of land which were leased to us by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture to fa­cil­i­tate farm­ing op­er­a­tions, which in­cludes live­stock and the grow­ing of short-term crops.

"Re­cent­ly, we were ap­proached by one *names in­di­vid­ual* and told that we would have to leave our premis­es for a rea­son­able cost to al­low him to ex­tract pit run from these lands. He threat­ened to deal with us if we did not com­ply, as he has re­cent­ly ac­quired a new Wash Plant from Chi­na and he needs more land to ex­tract pit run."

On Thurs­day morn­ing, af­ter de­cid­ing that they could not wait any longer for the au­thor­i­ties to act, res­i­dents came to­geth­er and blocked the road in protest. In­di­vid­ual com­plaints about the op­er­a­tions of the il­le­gal quar­ries in the re­cent past, res­i­dents said, were met with death threats.

“We are be­ing threat­ened by gun­men who will come up against any­one who stands up against them and they say any­one will die, so what do you want us to do? We have to come out to­geth­er be­cause if we send out two or three men, they are look­ing to kill you. That’s what they tell you.

“All these po­lice out here and they are not serv­ing their func­tion. What are they sup­posed to do? Not pro­tect and serve? We have a cou­ple of chil­dren suf­fer­ing from the dust. I al­most died in my bed from a seizure. My friend’s daugh­ter has had three throat in­fec­tions. These men have no re­morse. This go­ing on for about three months now,” a male res­i­dent, in his ear­ly 40s, said.

As he spoke with Guardian Me­dia, oth­er res­i­dents shout­ed their ver­sion of com­plaints.

The fa­ther of the child who suf­fered three throat in­fec­tions shout­ed at po­lice of­fi­cers, re­spond­ing to the protest.

“They over­do­ing it now. It’s the lit­tle chil­dren we care about. For them to make a mil­lion dol­lars, I must bury my child?” he said.

A short dis­tance away, around 200 me­tres, at his home, his wife and three chil­dren swept and mopped their house in an at­tempt to re­move as much of the dust as pos­si­ble. The chil­dren, all ill, were kept home from school this week.

'Show some re­spect for the com­mu­ni­ty'

As Guardian Me­dia walked fur­ther along the road, dust could be seen every­where. Cars parked to the side were blan­ket­ed. There were even coat­ings on roofs. Throats be­came scratchy and eyes be­gan to burn.

“Every morn­ing I walk this road, I am not a rich per­son. I can’t af­ford a car. Every morn­ing I walk this road with my three chil­dren. Two pairs of white sneak­ers mash up be­tween Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary. It is wrong.

“We know it have quar­ries around, but right now, it is too much quar­ry­ing. Who­ev­er is in charge of these quar­ries needs to come to­geth­er and hear what we have to say,” an­oth­er res­i­dent de­mand­ed.

Lutch­man Sama­roo, who has lived in the area for more than 40 years, com­plained that his four grand­chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly two of them with asth­ma, have been se­vere­ly im­pact­ed by the dust. He said every time vil­lagers raise con­cerns, the quar­ry op­er­a­tors wet down the road with wa­ter trucks, cre­at­ing mud.

“Where does the mud go? We are suf­fer­ing. We need as­sis­tance. I have a fam­i­ly. I’ve nev­er seen this done be­fore. But be­cause peo­ple live in a mil­lion-dol­lar area and they are peo­ple friends in Par­lia­ment or wher­ev­er, we have to suf­fer and they make mil­lions. When they make mil­lions, we have to spend thou­sands by the doc­tor,” he com­plained pas­sion­ate­ly.

Most res­i­dents said their aim was not to shut down the quar­ries but, rather, to en­sure that the quar­ry own­ers showed the com­mu­ni­ty some ba­sic re­spect. Apart from the dust, they com­plained that truck dri­vers, with­out any re­gard, were dri­ving reck­less­ly, en­dan­ger­ing peo­ple walk­ing the roads.

“We fed up. He tell him­self he could walk over us. From my un­der­stand­ing, he says he has worth. He doesn’t care about the com­mu­ni­ty. With all the mon­ey and the worth he has, we have a say as res­i­dents,” an­oth­er fe­male res­i­dent said.

The name of one of the sup­posed quar­ry own­ers was re­peat­ed­ly called by res­i­dents. They in­sist­ed it was no se­cret who was be­hind the op­er­a­tion–a ma­jor play­er from San­gre Grande, they claimed. While po­lice of­fi­cers re­port­ing to the scene spoke of the il­le­gal­i­ty of the protest, they ig­nored what was tak­ing place at the end of the road–a mere four-minute walk away.

With Moo­nan Road closed, the quar­ry op­er­a­tors cre­at­ed a makeshift road. Every minute, al­most on the dot, an emp­ty truck head­ing to­wards the quar­ry or a ful­ly loaded truck head­ing from the quar­ry sped down the makeshift road, but po­lice paid them no mind, de­spite them car­ry­ing il­le­gal ma­te­r­i­al. There was a sense of nor­mal­cy about the il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. It’s a fa­mil­iar nor­mal­cy for com­mu­ni­ties in cer­tain parts of the coun­try, al­most as if the res­i­dents are re­signed to the fact that the op­er­a­tors are un­touch­able.

Speak­ing with res­i­dents, the se­nior of­fi­cer at the scene said, “We will as­sist you all with di­a­logu­ing with the com­pa­ny. We will di­a­logue with them. I told the alder­woman that I would help her en­gage the com­pa­ny.”

A res­i­dent laughed when he heard the of­fi­cer say that, claim­ing that he would ‘bite his back,’ if that in­di­vid­ual came to speak with them.

Coun­cil­lor for Waller­field/La Hor­quet­ta Ker­ry-Anne Roberts Kas­mal­ly said res­i­dents protest­ed be­cause of min­ing that was tak­ing place.

“The min­ing is al­leged to be il­le­gal. The res­i­dents chose this morn­ing to voice their con­cerns us­ing a protest. The cor­po­ra­tion is here and we seek to part­ner with all stake­hold­ers to bring a re­solve to this par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion, un­for­tu­nate as it is,” she said.

In a 2023 in­ves­tiga­tive re­port, the Sun­day Guardian spoke with sources from the Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed. Sources re­vealed that large-scale quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions earn mil­lions of dol­lars every month. “The op­er­a­tors are on­ly pay­ing for diesel, op­er­a­tors and key man­pow­er like hav­ing me­chan­ics on sites. You are talk­ing about at least $5 to $7 mil­lion in four weeks—min­i­mum. If it’s $5 mil­lion, it’s be­cause of rain. Once the weath­er is good, $7 mil­lion, every four weeks. Those are hard, ev­i­dence-based num­bers."

As of Jan­u­ary 1, 2023, eight or­gan­i­sa­tions had min­ing li­cences to legal­ly quar­ry. There are no le­gal quar­ries in Waller­field