In Feb­ru­ary, Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed the har­row­ing or­deal faced by res­i­dents of Moo­nan Road in Waller­field. The area has been plagued by two al­leged il­le­gal quar­ries op­er­at­ing near Block 5, which have been us­ing Moo­nan Road and oth­er near­by roads as ar­ter­ies for their busi­ness. The con­stant stream of heavy ve­hi­cles has been caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the road, re­sult­ing in large pot­holes and dust clouds that hang over the area.

Res­i­dents have been left frus­trat­ed and an­gry as their lives have been turned up­side down by the in­tru­sive and dis­rup­tive op­er­a­tions. They said they have been threat­ened to give up their farm­land to al­low the op­er­a­tors to ex­pand their busi­ness or else face con­se­quences.

They have since writ­ten 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, the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands seek­ing as­sis­tance. 

Last week, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­tiga­tive Desk re­vis­it­ed Moo­nan Road to see what, if any­thing, changed.

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

A colos­sal quar­ry en­ter­prise in Block Five, Waller­field—part of an il­le­gal op­er­a­tion mak­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars from state lands across east Trinidad—con­tin­ues to op­er­ate with im­puni­ty.

The op­er­a­tions con­tin­ued even as the po­lice cracked down on a pro­cess­ing plant in the area on Thurs­day that was op­er­at­ing with­out a li­cence, ar­rest­ing eight peo­ple, in­clud­ing Aluko Ato Warn­er, the son of promi­nent To­ba­go busi­ness­man Al­lan Warn­er.

The coun­try’s en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion agency, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk last week that a com­plaint was re­ceived in Feb­ru­ary about the op­er­a­tion and was re­ferred to the Mul­ti-Agency Task Force of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

“Il­le­gal quar­ry­ing re­mains a high-stake con­cern to the EMA as it di­min­ish­es our nat­ur­al re­sources and can neg­a­tive­ly im­pact our en­vi­ron­ment with the large lev­el of waste it pro­duces, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of air, noise, and wa­ter pol­lu­tion, and the gen­er­al dis­rup­tions of ecosys­tems. The EMA con­tin­ues to ad­vise through con­sul­ta­tion with the Mul­ti-Agency Task Force.

“The pri­ma­ry con­trol falls un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI). There­fore, all re­ports of il­le­gal quar­ry­ing are made to the MEEI. Im­por­tant to note, that a Mul­ti-Agency Task Force has been es­tab­lished un­der the re­mit of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice to deal pri­mar­i­ly with il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. The EMA is con­sult­ed by and as­sists this task force where nec­es­sary,” the EMA wrote in a re­lease last week.

On Fri­day morn­ing, days af­ter the In­ves­tiga­tive Desk re­turned to the area and re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion from the EMA and Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries about the quar­ries, we were told po­lice of­fi­cers shut down op­er­a­tions at an il­le­gal quar­ry­ing ma­te­r­i­al pro­cess­ing site at Moo­nan Road on Thurs­day. Ac­cord­ing to res­i­dents, a large group of of­fi­cers and EMA of­fi­cials en­tered the com­pound and ar­rest­ed peo­ple work­ing at the site. Res­i­dents said work­ers were tak­en away in maxi taxis and po­lice ve­hi­cles.

When the In­ves­tiga­tive Desk vis­it­ed the site on Fri­day, a few po­lice of­fi­cers were still on the scene. The com­pound was barred off. Trucks and large ma­chin­ery like the ‘ma­te­r­i­al wash­ers’ were vis­i­ble, seem­ing­ly stopped amid their usu­al morn­ing rou­tine.

How­ev­er, while the pro­cess­ing plant was shut down, the two il­le­gal quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions near­by con­tin­ued un­af­fect­ed. Large ma­chin­ery and trucks con­tin­ued dig­ging and load­ing, car­ry­ing the ma­te­r­i­al to un­known sites.

Res­i­dents liv­ing near the plant de­fend­ed the site’s op­er­a­tors, how­ev­er, claim­ing they were not do­ing any­thing il­le­gal. They claimed the pro­cess­ing site was not ob­tain­ing con­struc­tion ma­te­r­i­al on­site but from oth­er sites. 

A work­er chill­ing out­side the plant was lucky to avoid ar­rest be­cause of an in­jury that he had to go home and nurse while po­lice swooped in. He was con­cerned that the plant’s shut­down, if per­ma­nent, would leave him un­em­ployed. He, too, main­tained that the plant’s own­ers were do­ing noth­ing wrong.

Mul­ti­ple il­le­gal quar­ries are op­er­at­ing in Block Five, Waller­field. The area is an agri­cul­tur­al vil­lage, with crop and dairy farm­ers in the area. Decades ago, the area was fer­tile grounds for hunt­ing wild meat like tat­too, lappe, and deer, but the an­i­mals aren’t as easy to find any­more, chased away by con­struc­tion and land clear­ing.

The un­cer­tain­ty over own­er­ship of the farm­lands pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for il­le­gal quar­ri­ers to ex­ploit the com­mer­cial po­ten­tial of the lands and ex­pand their op­er­a­tions. Any le­gal wrig­gle room or grey area the quar­ri­ers have to pounce on, they act quick­ly, with sev­er­al squat­ting set­tle­ments in San­gre Grande be­ing forced to dis­perse.

Three months af­ter the In­ves­tiga­tive Desk went in­to the area, the il­le­gal quar­ries—at least two—re­main ful­ly op­er­a­tional. 

Res­i­dents com­plain bit­ter­ly

Res­i­dents have com­plained bit­ter­ly to po­lice of­fi­cers and lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives about be­ing im­pris­oned in their own homes. 

Last week, Moo­nan Road res­i­dents com­plained that their lives re­mained stress­ful and con­strained. While they praised the last sto­ry that ap­peared in the Sun­day Guardian in Feb­ru­ary, they said things were the same. 

Res­i­dents said few­er trucks were op­er­at­ing, but ad­mit­ted that less was rel­a­tive. Dur­ing each in­ter­view, a truck full of grav­el passed along the road. The trucks passed up or down ap­prox­i­mate­ly every three to six min­utes. The en­tire road and the vil­lage had a gloomy, or­ange hue to it. The air tast­ed like dust, leav­ing one’s tongue heavy and dry with a sub­tle metal­lic taste. 

“Every­one is scared. We don’t know what to do. We’ve tried every­thing al­ready. Same dust. You just have to cool your­self,” said an el­der­ly fe­male res­i­dent.

“Af­ter that sto­ry, about three weeks af­ter, it start back. It start back worse. You can’t even stay in­side your own house. Any clothes you have in­side, you have to cov­er it up with a sheet,” said a mid­dle-aged male res­i­dent.

“That sto­ry brought tears to my eyes. The day we blocked the road, we asked him to come out and see us. He said I don’t want to see any of alyuh. He says, who­ev­er caus­es any com­mo­tion will get shots and end up dead. He doesn’t care about who is dead. He just cares about the grav­el.” 

An­oth­er male res­i­dent added, “There’s no im­prove­ment at all since then, be­cause with this kind of weath­er, when you wet the road now, two hours lat­er back to it and the trucks pass­ing fast boy.” 

Fol­low­ing the sto­ry in Feb­ru­ary, res­i­dents said the largest quar­ry in Block Five start­ed dri­ving their trucks through an­oth­er route, Manuel Con­go. Every oth­er as­pect of the op­er­a­tion re­mained un­touched. The quar­ry, ac­cord­ing to sources and res­i­dents, is owned by a well-known busi­ness­man from the East.

View­ing the op­er­a­tions

Last week, the In­ves­tiga­tive Desk was able to get a full view of the op­er­a­tion. There was a large pile of grav­el at the end of the farm road to block a view of the quar­ry site.

How­ev­er, on el­e­vat­ed lands at a dis­tance, you can get a view of the op­er­a­tions. It was like look­ing at a desert lost in the mid­dle of a for­est. As far back as one’s eyes could see, there was sand and dust. Across the mas­sive acreage of land torn apart by trac­tors, there was not a sin­gle speck of green in sight; the on­ly colours oth­er than or­ange were the met­al and black of the ex­pen­sive ma­chin­ery con­tin­u­ing to work. 

The bor­der to the site is a riv­er that lies down­hill from the mas­sive hills of ma­te­r­i­al.

The con­struc­tion ma­chines op­er­at­ed like a well-oiled sys­tem, with loads, each worth tens of thou­sands of dol­lars, mov­ing seam­less­ly from trac­tor to tray and pre­sumed to the stor­age site. The op­er­a­tion looked like a mil­lion dol­lars. It is worth much more than that, we were as­sured by res­i­dents and sources.

The In­ves­tiga­tive Desk was un­able to view an­oth­er one of the ma­jor quar­ries in the area as the pub­lic road lead­ing to the op­er­a­tion was guard­ed by a man who res­i­dents said was at the site night and day. Be­hind the man, for ex­tra pro­tec­tion, was a gate. It was ev­i­dent from even be­yond the bar­ri­er that the quar­ry was mas­sive. Thick, or­ange clouds of dust sur­round­ed ex­it­ing trucks full of ma­te­r­i­al from state land. We were not able to as­cer­tain if these trucks were pass­ing through Moo­nan Road or Manuel Con­go.

Over­whelm­ing lack of reg­u­la­tion

In May 2023, a Na­tion­al Quar­ries Lim­it­ed source said there was an over­whelm­ing lack of reg­u­la­tion in the in­dus­try, re­sult­ing in un­li­cenced com­pa­nies mak­ing mil­lions un­taxed.

The source said the ‘re­al theft’ takes place by some of the big­ger con­struc­tion com­pa­nies. 

“Who could ob­tain more ma­te­r­i­al? The lit­tle guys with an ex­ca­va­tor or the guys with mul­ti­ple ex­ca­va­tors and trac­tors? How do you stop them?” the Na­tion­al Quar­ries Lim­it­ed source said in a face-to-face meet­ing.

He said there was no way to stop the wrong­do­ers be­cause mak­ing re­ports in­ter­nal­ly or to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties would like­ly re­sult in death, giv­en that il­le­gal quar­ry­ing is a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar in­dus­try.

In re­sponse to a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­quest by Guardian Me­dia, the En­er­gy Min­istry re­vealed that be­tween Jan­u­ary 2020 and Jan­u­ary 2023, 57 firms and in­di­vid­u­als were fined for il­le­gal quar­ry­ing, and 44 il­le­gal min­ing op­er­a­tions were shut down. Sev­er­al of the firms list­ed, how­ev­er, de­nied know­ing they were be­ing fined for op­er­at­ing il­le­gal quar­ries.

Ac­cord­ing to the EMA, the leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing quar­ry­ing is the Min­er­als Act, which is un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries. The Min­er­als Act is the pri­ma­ry leg­is­la­tion to con­trol quar­ry­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, which spec­i­fies that no per­son shall ex­plore for, mine, process or im­port or ex­port min­er­als ex­cept un­der the au­thor­i­ty of a li­cence.

The EMA re­vealed that it re­ceived five re­ports of il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in 2024 so far. Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries but did not re­ceive a re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day. As of Jan­u­ary 1, 2023, eight or­gan­i­sa­tions had min­ing li­cences to legal­ly quar­ry. There are no le­gal quar­ries in Waller­field.