RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Di­rec­tor of a waste dis­pos­al com­pa­ny in Bar­rack­pore has dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that it has been dis­pos­ing chem­i­cals in the South Oropouche Riv­er, caus­ing res­i­dents to fall ill.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, the di­rec­tor said chem­i­cal waste is not stored at its com­pound.

"The Drums and IBCs seen are emp­ty and await­ing fur­ther pro­cess­ing at an­oth­er fa­cil­i­ty," the di­rec­tor said.

Asked whether it had in­ves­ti­gat­ed im­prop­er dis­pos­al of petro­chem­i­cal waste, the di­rec­tor said:

"Man­age­ment has been in­formed of the com­plaint and has in­ves­ti­gat­ed. There was main­te­nance work at the fa­cil­i­ty last week which en­tailed dri­ve­way re­pairs. Due to the heavy rain­fall, we used a vac­u­um truck to re­move ex­cess wa­ter off the road­way to fa­cil­i­tate the con­crete resur­fac­ing and the waste­water that was sucked up was dis­charged in­to our con­crete drain which is con­nect­ed to a sump."

He added: "It is im­por­tant to note our fa­cil­i­ty’s drains are not con­nect­ed to the riv­er at the back of the prop­er­ty, nor are they di­rect­ly con­nect­ed to the front drain but to a sump."

He said the com­pa­ny had a for­mal, doc­u­ment­ed pro­ce­dure on prop­er waste dis­pos­al that has been ap­proved by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties and is strict­ly ad­hered to.

"Like in any or­ga­ni­za­tion, if an em­ploy­ee does not abide by the rules and reg­u­la­tions of the or­ga­ni­za­tion there are reper­cus­sions. We have pro­ce­dures in place to en­sure that waste is prop­er­ly re­ceived and treat­ed," he added.

He not­ed that the EMA has not con­tact­ed them but added that this was not the first time that his com­pa­ny has been un­fair­ly blamed.

"We had a sit­u­a­tion in the dis­tant past with a sim­i­lar al­le­ga­tion be­ing levied against us with the same claim be­ing made by res­i­dents about a high chem­i­cal smell and a die-off of fish in the riv­er. Af­ter the in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the au­thor­i­ties, it was de­ter­mined that was caused by a duck farm high­er up the riv­er," he said.

He not­ed that the riv­er be­hind his com­pound was al­tered with­out the per­mis­sion of the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.

"This con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the flood­ing in the area and when it floods our com­pound is ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed," he added.