Work on Farm rice mill site resumes
despite no environmental study
Stabroek News
June 11, 2004
Guyana Stockfeeds Inc (GSI) has resumed construction at the site of its rice mill even as it awaits the outcome of court action appealing the decision of the Environmental Assess-ment Board (EAB) to have it conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
Stabroek Business understands that GSI had applied and was granted approval by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) through the Little Diamond Herstelling Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) to construct a bond to store components for its proposed parboiled rice mill at the Farm, East Bank Demerara site until the court rules on the matter. GSI Chief Executive Officer Robert Badal had previously said he was conducting talks in Trinidad to have the mill established there.
Attempts via both telephone and a personal visit to the GSI offices to obtain a comment from CEO Badal on Tuesday and Wednesday proved futile.
His Assistant "Priya" on Tuesday had said Badal had left but not before having earlier promised to return a call to the newspaper after a meeting.
Attempts to contact Badal on Wednesday were again unsuccessful with his assistant initially indicating he was in a meeting and would not be free until sometime between 1 pm and 1:30 pm.
A call returned at this time saw the assistant indicating that Badal had left for the airport 20 minutes ago.
Stabroek Business showed photographs of the construction to rice officials who believed it was a parboiled rice unit being built.
Meanwhile National Hardware [Guyana] Ltd (NHL) and the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (New GPC) will shortly move to the courts to block any move by GSI to proceed with the construction of a rice mill at the Farm location.
Speaking with Stabroek Business yesterday, NHL's Chief Executive Officer, Edward Boyer confirmed the move while indicating his company's intention to write to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the construction of a mill by GSI.
"We are calling on the EPA to halt the current construction by GSI at the Farm site until they conclude a EIA study as directed by the EAB", Boyer said yesterday.
However contacted on Tuesday, EPA's Director of the Environmental Manage-ment Unit, Elza Florendo told this newspaper that the body was aware of the development and had made a site visit to verify reports they had received.
She said the visit was prompted after complaints that construction was going on despite the EAB directing that an EIA be done.
She acknowledged that the body had written to Badal after the visit.
Stabroek Business visited the location on Saturday and yesterday and saw what appeared to be silo components being permanently erected in what appeared to be a partially enclosed structure.
Meanwhile Chairman of the Little Diamond/ Herstelling NDC Ulric Ramanah contacted yesterday said that he was aware of the construction ongoing at the Farm location while acknowledging that an application for permission to construct a storage facility had been received by the council.
This he said was subsequently forwarded to the CH&PA since the NDC has no authority to grant such permission.
However, since then Ramanah was stricken by a serious illness requiring treatment overseas which saw him being absent for approximately two months and it was only Tuesday that he resumed duties at the NDC.
As such he had to take some time to reacquaint himself with the issue and the current situation.
Boyer reiterated his desire for an EIA to be done prior to any mill being erected on the Farm site since to do otherwise would be to condemn residents in neighbouring communities and surrounding businesses to the perils of dust pollution.
The EPA had in June last year issued a cease order to GSI to halt construction of its mill following objections from several groups.
At the same time they issued notices for the holding of a public hearing to allow the sides to ventilate their feelings about the project.
After the two public hearings an EIA was ordered by the EAB.
Those against the project include the (NewGPC) and National Hardware (Guyana) that the proposed mill was in danger of creating dust, noise, vibration, and gaseous, solid and liquid wastes.
The main grouse of the NDC was that it had not been briefed about the project and the developer had failed to submit the necessary proposals as required by law to allow an informed judgement to be made.
The EPA, which had initially exempted GSI from undertaking an EIA, had said that its decision was based on information at their disposal regarding existing operations, their knowledge of the rice industry along with assurances from the developer that the design criteria were sound.
Badal in defence of his project had said that the likelihood of dust or other pollutants affecting anyone would be held to a minimum as most of the operations would be enclosed and fully insulated.
He further indicated that all by-products from the operation were to be used in the operations in the form of providing energy for the mill.
Badal had even flown in an overseas expert to detail for the EAB how modern rice mills function.