News

River poisoning slows in Portland

BY: KAVELLE ANGLIN-CHRISTIE, Staff Reporter

A resident of Millwall points to one of the tributaries to the Quashi river that has been poisoned. The streams were poisoned by residents who did it to catch cray fish to sell in the Port Antonio area. - ian allen

RIVER POISONING IN Portland has stopped. Well, almost.

On THE STAR's second visit to Windsor, Millbank, and Bellvue in Portland, the residents said after the publication in THE STAR on March 22, highlighting the dangers of poisoning of the Rio Grande Valley tributary in Windsor, and eating of the poisoned fish, it has stopped in that area.

However, Marolyn 'Lucy' Gentles, vice president of Environmental Education at the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust, (JCDT), said the poisoning of some of the other tributaries in Millbank has continued.

The vice president of the Bowton Farmers Association, Eric McCurby, said a young man in the Millbank community constantly poisons the river. "What he will do is go around and poison the tributaries to kill the fish and catch them." He said the man's livelihood comes from selling the fish to business operators and tourists in Port Antonio.

"The chemicals that he uses is dangerous. He uses Sevens, Karate or Gramoxone, in the water. When he pours in a certain amount in the river all the ganga die. Sometimes he will throw an entire bottle in there," he said, adding that an entire bottle can affect a river two communities away. "It is not only the ganga that he catches die, but for hours, or even days the other fishes are dying; then they stay there and stink in the river. Now when we go to catch fish, we only get a little," he said.

Sevens, Karate and Gramoxone are weed killers.

Killing the fish

Another member of the Bowton Farmers Association, Peter Higgins, said the proper way to catch the fish is to use the 'turning the stone method'. "What you do is one person hold a basket, and another person move the stones around in the river so the fish will come. But that man wants to catch the fish fast, and it is slowly killing all the fish."

McCurby says the man was previously arrested for poisoning the water, but the charges were dropped because there wasn't enough proof - the substance completely dissolves in water, "and with something like that, you have to catch him in the act." The act can attract a maximum fine of $50,000 or a year imprisonment.

Gentles said the pesticide dissolves in the water quickly and cannot be traced if not tested immediately.

Testing

She said because testing can only be done at one place in the island - the University of the West Indies - it was fairly difficult to get the poisoned sample there in time. "What we want to tell anybody who suspects their river of being poisoned, is to quickly take a sample, place it in the refrigerator, and while it is still in a cooler, try to get it to a park ranger or someone so it can be taken in for testing."

In the previously published article, Dr, Karl Aiken, at the UWI, told THE STAR, "The substance (Gramoxone) is a deadly one, and those throwing it in the water should be identified and punished. Those persons who eat the fish continuously will become very sick."

He said over a period of time people may experience diarrhoea, and stomach pains, and develop lung problems and other long term illnesses.

The Bowton Farmers Association, in association with JCDT have been working to educate those living in the area about the obvious dangers of poisoning the river.