The con­tro­ver­sy con­tin­ues be­tween the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA) and the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the Josie's Jamish­ness fete on May 15th, 2022. The EMA is now try­ing to an­swer some of the ques­tions raised by the pub­lic and politi­cians.

What hap­pened?

On Sun­day, May 15th, 2022, the Josie's Jamish­ness fete was held at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba in South­ern Trinidad. It is mar­ket­ed as the first J'ou­vert-style event out­side of car­ni­val in T&T. Giv­en that J'ou­vert is an ear­ly morn­ing event, the noise was quite ab­nor­mal across the usu­al­ly qui­et com­mu­ni­ties of east San Fer­nan­do for an ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing.

Noise com­plaints were sub­mit­ted to the EMA from res­i­dents of San Fer­nan­do and en­vi­rons, in­clud­ing the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for San Fer­nan­do East, Bri­an Man­ning. Com­plaints al­so arose from Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles and Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la coun­cilor Mar­cus Gird­harie. Ac­cord­ing to Gird­harie, res­i­dents of Re­form, Ben Lomond Vil­lage, Tarou­ba, St Joseph Vil­lage, and Co­coyea were dis­turbed by "loud, boom­ing, in­ces­sant, and dis­turb­ing noise" from the all-night fete.

The EMA in­di­cat­ed that their En­vi­ron­men­tal Pa­trol Unit (EPU) was on-site at the event mon­i­tor­ing the deci­bel lev­els for 30 min­utes, which is re­quired by law.

In a state­ment is­sued on May 16th, the EMA said they is­sued a Noise Vari­a­tion for this event. The deci­bel lim­its spec­i­fied were 70 dBA from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and 80dBA from 8.00 a.m. to 11.00 a.m.

In re­sponse to queries from Guardian Me­dia, the EMA said its EPU mon­i­tored the emis­sion of sound from the event and record­ed a 76.6 dBA, mean­ing the lev­el was 6.6 dBA above the noise lev­el pre­scribed un­til 8:00 a.m. Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC), noise above 70 dB over a pro­longed pe­ri­od may dam­age your hear­ing.

Why did they not shut down the event?

It's the ques­tion many have asked, and ac­cord­ing to the EMA, the pow­er of the EMA and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to shut down events has not been for­mal­ized in law. The EMA is cur­rent­ly em­broiled in a le­gal bat­tle against Wild Goose Lim­it­ed be­fore the Court of Ap­peal of Trinidad and To­ba­go to set­tle the law and de­ter­mine when its pow­er should be ex­er­cised.

The EMA said in a me­dia re­lease on May 23rd, 2022, "Giv­en that this mat­ter is sub ju­dice, the EMA ex­er­cised its dis­cre­tion to di­rect the Event Man­agers to low­er the sound. The EMA is is­su­ing a No­tice of Vi­o­la­tion to the Event Man­agers fol­low­ing the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act Chap.35:05."

How do you re­port noise com­plaints?

Ac­cord­ing to the EMA, you should for­mal­ly re­port noise nui­sances to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the EMA at com­plaints@ema.co.tt or 226-4EMA Ext. 2, as this will as­sist the EMA in de­vel­op­ing a data­base on noise nui­sances in Trinidad and To­ba­go and alert the TTPS to act with­in its re­mit un­der the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Chap. 11:02.

The EMA main­tains that an all-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach is re­quired to fight the scourge of noise pol­lu­tion and thus ap­peals to fete-pro­mo­tors, event or­ga­niz­ers, bar-own­ers, and the gen­er­al pub­lic to be re­spon­si­ble civic-mind­ed, and cog­nizant of the dam­ag­ing ef­fects of noise pol­lu­tion.

Re­porter: Kalain Ho­sein