Aluminum Smelter in Trinidad - Protest Chatham Cedros Point Fortin

A Chatham riposte
Julian Kenny
Tuesday, March 1st 2005

I am so pleased to learn that Mark Meredith has been able to extract from a "senior EMA official" that the Authority will most likely insist on standards applicable in the United States of America when it is considering Alcoa's application for the smelter. The USA, notwithstanding Bush's intentions, does have incredibly high environmental standards, not only for industrial emissions and effluents, but for protection of the biological diversity of the country.
The USA has its Endangered Species Act that has been around for about three decades. Just imagine, a secretive salamander, Ambystoma californiense, has actually slowed down if not stopped the physical development of a county in California. How? It is endemic to a part of California and its habitat is now being eaten up by the sprawl of housing and vineyards. The Endangered Species Act lists the California tiger salamander and protects it by protecting its habitat. To be placed on the endangered species list an animal, or plant, has to be subject to critical scientific scrutiny. Trinidad and Tobago has the equivalent in its Environmental Management Act 2000, where rules are made for designating species as "Sensitive Species", although no species has yet been designated.
We do not have salamanders in Trinidad and Tobago. Salamanders belong to a primitive group of amphibians distinguished by having a tail. Some are aquatic and others are terrestrial. A few are cave-dwelling.
Trinidad and Tobago does, however, have a rich freshwater fish, amphibian and reptilian fauna, and a few of them are found nowhere else in the island except where-the southwestern peninsula! Similarly there are plants that are restricted to that peninsula. There are scientific reasons for this, mainly the proximity of the peninsula to the South American mainland and to the Orinoco River.
Forgive the scientific names but let us take two noted plant examples. Orchid fanciers will extol the wonders of the Cedros bee orchid, Oncidium lanceanum, for its beauty, scent, and the long life of its flowers. Another is simply a balisier by the name of Heliconia marginata, one of five species that occurs locally. It is distinctive in that the inflorescence is pendulous. You will not find these occurring naturally except on the southwestern peninsula in wet forested areas at the edge of the los Blanquizales Swamp.
Let us take next freshwater fish. The silver hatchet fish, Gasteropelecus sternicla, is found naturally only in the Chatham River and the adjacent Quarahoon River. The Cedros Guabine, Erythrinus erythrinus is a found only in an un-named stream that passes below the South Trunk Road just outside the village of Bonasse, at B1/71. And for frogs, there are the slender toed frog Leptodactylus macrosternum and the tree frog Hyla minuscule , and the poorly known reptile Thamnodynastes strigatus.
The south coast beaches, including the Chatham beach that stretches several kilometres from Red Cliff in the east to Islote Point in the west, is a noted stopover point for migratory birds, particularly terns. Undoubtedly further scientific studies will reveal more locally endemic plants and animals and the general ecology of the peninsula, which I have suggested earlier could very well qualify for "Sensitive Area" status.
There you have it. Seven species of plants and animals known in Trinidad only from the southwestern peninsula and we are told that the industrialisation will go all the way to Icacos. Trinidad and Tobago and most countries subscribe to what the United Nations calls the "Cautionary Principle" in exploiting living resources. Translated into simple language it means it is better to be safe than sorry, don't do anything until you have got the science right. But I have my doubts as to whether Trinidad and Tobago will ever employ the principle.
Indeed the long delay in laying the air quality and effluent standards in Parliament suggests that Government is actually deliberately suppressing action in order to give it some advantage, possibly in making the country more attractive for the foreign investors. You know the sort of thing-cheap energy, cheap labour and the absence of environmental standards. This will certainly attract investors but it will make a mockery of the repeated mantra of sustainable development and when the "development" winds down, whatever the projected life, the costs of rehabilitation will probably exceed the original investments. The only ones who will be happy are the companies and their shareholders as they move on to the next round of invitations from aspiring client states.
And now we hear that Parliament is to get a new building. Strange. You would think that a Parliament that permits its committee, Cabinet, which accountable to it, to make major decisions that affect the future of citizens without reference to it might demand an answer. People must have priority over buildings. And when will the air and effluent standards be laid? When?