Aluminum Smelter in Trinidad - Environmental Dangers, Crime, Industrialization

SMELTER WITH TRIMMINGS
SUPER SIZE US - PART TWO
By Mark Meredith

Yvonne Ashby, second from right, and family on land her family have owned since 1887. She fears she will have no choice but to move if Alcoa’s smelter is built nearby.
In part one of SUPER SIZE US, MARK MEREDITH looked at the experience of residents surrounding Union Estate who had their lives super sized for Alcoa’s US$1 billion aluminium smelter and gas-based industrial processing plants.

Cabinet has since agreed to acquire lands in nearby Cap-de-Ville and Chatham in Cedros, and one hundred per cent of an area twice the size of nearby Union Estate will be cleared of vegetation and everything within it for Alcoa and other heavy, gas-based tenants.

But residents don’t want it. Are the Government and Alcoa acting within the law, with due transparency and procedure in their rush to reap the rewards of aluminium’s shiny sheen?

YVONNE ASHBY is 74-years old, bright-eyed, spirited and defiant. She has lived in her two-storey wooden house in Chatham most of her life, land her family have occupied since 1887.

Not surprisingly she doesn’t want to move.

Sitting on her porch with a cooling breeze blowing in across the rolling hills and meadows, with birds flitting in and out of the forest behind the house and the sound of human activity totally absent, it was easy to see why.

It is a very beautiful part of Trinidad, rural and unspoilt, quiet and serene, where the value of the surrounding environment is deeply ingrained in the psyche of the people who depend upon it.

But if the Government and Alcoa have their way, an alternative existence is certain. It is not that Yvonne Ashby’s land is to be acquired for Alcoa’s smelter plant but, as far as she’s concerned, it might as well be.

Houses, hills, valleys, forests and fields will be levelled over a 2,000 acre-or three-square mile area that will scythe the Cedros Peninsula in half; the effects of which will last long after the gas-based fires fueling Alcoa’s smelter have burned out. The impact will be felt not only by those who will lose their land, but by the thousands surrounding the industrial estate and beyond.

Yvonne Ashby worries that the breeze will blow her way once the smelter and other gas-based industries have been established nearby. She knows life will never be
the same again and she isn’t prepared to let that happen. Where would I go? she asked.

She is the chairperson of a group of Chatham residents formed to fight Alcoa’s smelter called the Chatham/Cap-de-Ville Environmental Protection Group (CEPG).

You think we’ll give this up just so? she asked my companion and me, sweeping her arms over the idyllic landscape.

I was with former Independent Senator Professor Julian Kenny, a fierce critic of the way in which the industrialisation of rural Trinidad is being driven. We had come down to Cedros together in the hope of meeting Yvonne Ashby and other concerned residents. Professor Kenny was very familiar with the area, having studied its rich biodiversity since the 1950s.

We found ourselves experiencing déjà vu, of a kind. We had met in Toco in 2000 when Kenny was lending assistance to residents fighting the acquisition of their land for an industrial port by the UNC Government and I had been covering the story.

This time the area scheduled to disappear is 48 times the size of central Toco (17 ha/45 acres). Vigorous protests by the residents of Toco succeeded in making the Government back down from their super sized order of industry and trimmings for the quiet coastal village.

Like residents in Cap-de-Ville and Chatham, Toco people were surprised to find their properties were to be acquired for industrialisation. Like Toco, the proponents in Cedros, Alcoa/NGC, are now unilaterally conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the smelter based on the EMA’s Terms of Reference (TOR) for a smelter at Union Estate.
We were not initially well received by Yvonne Ashby, friends and family two strangers at their gate. They met us arms folded, expressions betraying suspicion. They told us they thought we were from Alcoa.

Alcoa representatives had visited others before, with a questionnaire as part of the EIA, accompanied by men with guns, Yvonne Ashby told us. Random surveys of 800 households whose land would be required had taken place in these circumstances, she said.

According to a newspaper report, over 1,000 residents had received verbal notice from Alcoa that they would be displaced, with alternative accommodation or money offered as compensation. Notices stated surveys were part of the EIA process. Homes were said to have been visited by armed security guards, questions asked about how much lands we have, said the report.

Later, said Mrs Ashby, residents were told that only 700 homes would be required. We don’t know what to believe, she told me.

In a letter in the Sunday Express (January 23) replying to Julian Kenny’s column Bhopalising Trinidad, Randy Overbey, President, Primary Metals Development, Alcoa, wrote that they were currently awaiting the EMA’s Terms of Reference (TOR) for the EIA for Cap-de-Ville and initiating the consultative process with the communities.

On the evening of February 1, Overbey met a group of residents himself, Mrs Ashby told me. He promised between 600-800 jobs and that the plant would be built within the community, she said. They would plant trees, and recycle the red mud waste as concrete.

Overbey, in his letter in the Sunday Express, admitted Alcoa don’t yet know how they will deal with spent pot linings, the other waste derived from the smelting process containing fluorides.

On February 10 in Chatham, residents held their own meeting of about 300 people from across Cedros which confirmed the communities’ opposition to the smelter. Former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, who addressed the meeting, has taken up their cause.

I asked project manager John Jones of National Energy Corporation (NEC), a subsidiary of NGC and Alcoa’s partners, why they were conducting an EIA for the smelter before they had received the Cap-de-Ville TOR from the EMA.

He told me they were working to the EMA’s TOR for the original smelter site at Union Estate.

I pointed out these were totally different areas, but Jones didn’t appear to agree. He told me the areas of Union Estate and Cap-de-Ville/Chatham were basically the same in terms of the baseline data they were gathering, and that it didn’t make sense to start over.

They would fine tune and fit the EIA for Cap-de-Ville when the EMA gave them the TOR.

Jones confirmed that the social surveys were part of their EIA process.

But, according to section 5 (2) of the Environmental Management Act, the proponent has to hold consultations with NGOs and the public on the Terms of Reference for the EIA, in this case the TOR for a smelter at Cap-de-Ville. Alcoa have not done this, moving straight to EIA surveys based on the TOR for another part of Trinidad.

Before Alcoa’s smelter can be issued with a certificate of environmental clearance (CEC), a separate CEC first has to be issued for the creation of the industrial estate at Cap-de-Ville/Chatham to fit Alcoa’s plant and other gas-based industries. The EMA have to know who the prospective tenants will be in order to quantify the cumulative effects of many different plants.

The draft TOR for an industrial estate at Cap-de-Ville was issued on January 5 and is out for public comment. It calls on Alcoa/NEC to provide a detailed explanation of land use, the type of industries/ tenants expected to take up residence, their density of occupation, and activities and components of the wider study area.

I asked NEC’s John Jones what type of industries besides the smelter were planned for Cap-de-Ville. He told me that had not been determined, nor who would be carrying out the EIA for the industrial estate.

NEC must indicate the acceptability of the proposed project to nearby community groups in the Cap-de-Ville area and environmental NGOs, say the EMA. In this area, which is currently zoned for agriculture, they must take into account customs, aspirations and attitudes of the local community.

We were told by the Ashby family that 99 per cent of households were against the smelter. Recounting a meeting called by Alcoa, Yvonne Ashby said that when residents were asked if they wanted the smelter plant most people said no. Asked again, they were told no, no, no! Again and again.

Presently, the EMA are determining whether the Alcoa smelter needs a CEC, which I was told was most likely. If it is, CEC draft Terms of Reference for an EIA will be issued and the public will have 28 days to comment on them.

I asked a senior EMA official about the legality of the EIA Alcoa were carrying out in Cap-de-Ville based on the TOR for Union Estate. I was told it was a free country, and they could do as they wish, but Alcoa/NEC would have to abide by any new TOR set for Cap-de-Ville/Chatham.

John Jones of NEC told me they would do everything the EMA demands of us.

If the public wanted to access Alcoa’s January 7 CEC application for a smelter at Cap-de-Ville/Chatham in the CEC National Register at the EMA, as of last week they could not.

A proponent is allowed to request confidentiality on the file. For instance, they may not want to give away technological secrets, like a smelting process, perhaps. This request is still being determined by the EMA.
However, I was able to access Alcoa/NEC’s original TOR for a smelter at Union Estate, later withdrawn and now being used at Cap-de-Ville/Chatham for their EIA.

The EMA say that the overall shelf life of the proposed facility would be 50 years with operations occurring on a 24-hour basis.

Output of the smelter is expected to be 325,000 metric tonnes per year of finished aluminium product and the preferred process train would utilise Heroult-Hall pre-baked anode technology.

For every tonne of aluminium produced, a half tonne of coke and two tonnes of alumina would be required, they say.

The plant would require 400 megawatts of electricity for the smelting process, and in excess of 300 cubic metres of potable water per day. A dedicated power plant would be needed and the infrastructure for delivery of water and natural gas.

The EMA say that Alcoa’s smelter EIA should focus on comprehensively documenting and demonstrating the impacts this activity may present to different aspects of the social and natural environment (See box).
Alcoa’s smelter must be in compliance with local standards and guidelines, they say. International standards or guidelines should be used where they have not been formalised locally for specific circumstances.
The EMA’s Terms of Reference (TOR) for an Alcoa aluminium smelter at Union Estate in La Brea which are currently being used by Alcoa/NEC for an EIA at Cap-de-Ville and Chatham list potential impacts of the proposed project.
The EMA describe the potential effects as significant adverse impacts at Union Estate, an area half the size of the proposed site at Cap-de-Ville/Chatham, and have directed Alcoa to study the impact on the following:
• Community (health, safety and socio-economic impacts);
• Flora and fauna, terrestrial and aquatic;
• Hydrology, drainage, sediment loads, the marine environment and potential of contamination from spills;
• Changes to topography, such as leveling undulating countryside, changes in noise and vibration levels from the site and associated transportation networks, changes in soil contamination levels, and changes in sensitive habitats including forests, coastal zones and recreational areas;
• Waste and its disposal, hazard mitigation in the event of gaseous or particulate fluoride release, and impacts on utilities and infrastructure; and
• The cumulative impacts arising from the smelter and its associated industries, as well as unrelated industries.
Our two most important pieces of environmental legislation protecting us against pollution from smelters and chemical processing plants are The Air Pollution Rules and Water Pollution Rules. But they have not been formalised, not laid in Parliament and passed by the House.

This means, according to a senior EMA source, that the EMA would expect to subject Alcoa to the same standards and guidelines that would apply in their parent country, the United States.

Though the EMA has long drafted legislation governing industry’s impacts on the environment and human health, the Government has been stalling the process for years, said the source. They now want to wait on the outcome of the revised National Environmental Policy, to see if the Air and Water Pollution Rules will fit it.

For former Independent Senator Julian Kenny, the delay in passing this legislation while the country is rapidly industrialising is unacceptable. But that’s not the only thing bothering him.

In a series of columns in the Express that began last June Smeltering environmental law, Kenny has been a lone voice warning us about our diet.

For example: the dangers of our inadequate regulatory standards; our high population density; our capacity to protect pipelines and hazardous industrial plants; being able to cope with industrial disaster and adequate compensation to those affected; and that Parliament is being bypassed by Cabinet dictates in its efforts to industrialise us.

He was critical of MOUs being signed by the Government with foreign companies to establish smelters and industrial plants at specific sites without public debate or consultation, he told me.

An issue such as the industrialisation of the country is of immense national importance and properly any communication on the broad issue must be to the fount of Cabinet’s authority and powers Parliament, he wrote.
Professor Kenny emphasised the law of the land in Trinidad and Tobago under the Town & Country Planning Act; that any change in land use can only come about after a submission by the Minister to Parliament for an alteration to the 1984 National Physical Development Plan (NPDP).

If the Government wants a change in the land use of a three square mile-area of currently zoned agricultural land under the NPDP in Cap-de-Ville/Chatham, to one set aside for industrial estates, then it must first do so through the parliamentary sanction of a reviewed NPDP.

This NPDP shall, by law, be reviewed every five years and approved by Parliament, but this has not happened, says Kenny.

On Yvonne Ashby’s porch, taking in the peace of the breeze blowing from the direction of the forest wall and over the meadows, an ambience that generations of her family have enjoyed, Kenny read my thoughts.

Mark, he said, just look at the quality of life these people have here, and paused. It will change everything, he said softly, standing to face the wind blowing from the north.