Press Release - Corpus Christi Planting protest
NGO’s and communities from across Trinidad and Tobago will converge on Union village early on the Corpus Christi holiday this Thursday to replant trees removed by companies involved in the Union Industrial Estate project.
Corpus Christi, which traditionally marks the beginning of planting at the start of the rainy season is being used as a rallying call to all communities and individuals concerned with clean and sustainable development for Trinidad and Tobago.
Several villagers in the Union area have had respiratory complaints during the dry season, when the 1000 acres of cleared land turned into a dust bowl. They received no compensation for medical bills from the companies involved.
The efforts of an Indian Arrival Day buffer zone re-planting exercise have since been graded down and the road blocked, demonstrating that the construction of the Alutrint smelter plant is already in contravention of this nation's laws.
Not only are they pressing ahead without a Certificate of Environmental Clearance, they have also not honoured the requirement the 100 m buffer zone between the road and the closest homes.
The Rights Action Group remains concerned that Trinidad and Tobago has neither the infrastructure to support the aluminum smelting industry nor the facilities and expertise required to monitor its envrionmental and social impacts.
There is still no official response from the EMA on the granting of the Certificate of Environmental Clearance, although Managing Director Dr. Dave Mc Intosh had announced at a Public Consultation at the La Brea Community Centre on May 27, 2006 that a decision would be announced on May 31.
RAG hopes this as a positive sign that the EMA may actually be heeding the voices of dissent and is thinking twice about the introduction of this death industry to our island.
For further information, please call 774 1276 or 718 0480.
Corpus Christi, which traditionally marks the beginning of planting at the start of the rainy season is being used as a rallying call to all communities and individuals concerned with clean and sustainable development for Trinidad and Tobago.
Several villagers in the Union area have had respiratory complaints during the dry season, when the 1000 acres of cleared land turned into a dust bowl. They received no compensation for medical bills from the companies involved.
The efforts of an Indian Arrival Day buffer zone re-planting exercise have since been graded down and the road blocked, demonstrating that the construction of the Alutrint smelter plant is already in contravention of this nation's laws.
Not only are they pressing ahead without a Certificate of Environmental Clearance, they have also not honoured the requirement the 100 m buffer zone between the road and the closest homes.
The Rights Action Group remains concerned that Trinidad and Tobago has neither the infrastructure to support the aluminum smelting industry nor the facilities and expertise required to monitor its envrionmental and social impacts.
There is still no official response from the EMA on the granting of the Certificate of Environmental Clearance, although Managing Director Dr. Dave Mc Intosh had announced at a Public Consultation at the La Brea Community Centre on May 27, 2006 that a decision would be announced on May 31.
RAG hopes this as a positive sign that the EMA may actually be heeding the voices of dissent and is thinking twice about the introduction of this death industry to our island.
For further information, please call 774 1276 or 718 0480.
posted by Attillah at 5:55 AM
1 Comments:
Either you guys are blind or so blinded by your agenda to not see the truth when it is directly in front of you. Don't you guys read the daily press?! For the past four days the EMA has been running half page ads in all of the dailys beating their chest on the fact that they have refused to grant a CEC to Alutrint until certain deficiencies in their EIA have been satisfactorily addressed. They have also posted the deficiency report they handed to Alutrint on May 31st on their web site just as they did the EIA reports.
As for the construction activities underway at Union, these activities are being done under the gambit of the CEC awarded for the creation of the UNION INDUSTRIAL ESTATE and are being undertaken legitimately by the NEC. The road is blocked so as to allow for the construction of the intersection of the new Industrial Corridor linking the Union Industrial Estate to the La Brea Port to the existing Southern main Road.
Alutrint is still waiting word on whether they will get a CEC to build their aluminium complex and are not in any way in contravention of this nation's laws.
I support what you guys are trying to achieve but get your facts straight otherwise you will not get the national support you need to win your fight. No one aligns themselves with irresponsible, inflamatory and manipulative groups and as you will soon realise, as you continue with this course of action and make yourselves more and more irrelevant no one will hear you anymore.
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