News

Residents furious over dust from bauxite company

By GEORGE HENRY, STAR Writer

Residents of Content and Providence conversing with the police as they protested yesterday.

SPALDINGS, CLARENDON:

DUST EMANATING FROM a mining site near the Windalco bauxite plant in Content, Manchester, yesterday forced residents there to take to the street in protest.

The placard-bearing residents, numbering about 100, converged at the main entrance of the plant and then marched on to the company's compound.

According to Adrian Bent, one of the spokespersons for the group of protestors, residents of Content and Providence have been ill at ease for a number of years because of dust coming from areas being mined by Windalco.

Bent said he and other residents have been neglected by the company's management despite it being informed several times that dust from their operations was polluting water tanks in the affected communities.

Bent said that several residents have developed serious respiratory problems, crops were being affected and roofs, furniture, and clothes were being damaged by the dust. He said the company has been paying residents about $350 per room for each house being affected by the dust.

Inadequate

That figure residents say is woefully inadequate as in addition to having to spend the money to clean dust from their belongings, they have been spending much more making regular visits to the doctor. They are calling for an increase in the fee to at least $1000 per room for each househould per month to offset their costs.

Resident also complained that Windalco, instead of offering them employment so that they would be better able to take care of some of their expenses, they were employing persons from outside of the parish of Manchester.

"We have a serious problem here. Our water has been polluted and the company does not even have the heart to have water trucked to our homes, so many of us have been forced to purchase water. That is not fair. It should be the company's responsibility to have water sent to us, because it is them who pollute our water," one resident lamented.

That resident said that Windalco declined to have water trucked to their homes but were trucking water to other communities.

They are also calling on the company to have their relocated, because there are indications that Windalco will be mining near their homes for months.