By Dionne Rose, Staff ReporterREGULATIONS SHOULD be on the books by late next year to sanction companies that discharge untreated sewage or sludge into the island's water bodies
This, according to Winsome Townsend, director of the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), who made the disclosure at the official launch of the Kingston Harbour Public Awareness Campaign at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, late last week.
Mrs. Townsend was responding to questions posed about the types of fines that were being imposed on entities that were disposing untreated matter into the Kingston Harbour.
"NEPA is, in fact, working on sewage effluent regulations and trade effluent regulations and is looking about coming up with fines," she said.
SURVEY CONDUCTED
She told The Gleaner in an interview that currently there were no fines to be imposed on persons who discharged untreated sewage or sludge into water bodies but pointed out that the proposed regulations would address this.
Already, the Kingston Harbour Project, a venture of the Government of Jamaica and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), has done a survey of all the industrial enterprises that are in the Kingston watershed, which drains into the Kingston Harbour.
Cowell Lyn, project coordinator of the Kingston Harbour Project, said that more than 100 operations were identified. He noted though, that only two companies posed serious threat to the harbour.
He said that the aim of the survey was to encourage these corporations to install Environmental Management Systems (EMS) procedures.
COOPERATION
So far, the companies have shown their interest in cooperating."They have welcomed us because it is something that can benefit them. The thing that we try to do is to show that by careful management it is very often possible to improve the profitability of the business in many ways either by recycling some of the waste products or just reducing the amount of materials that they use," Mr. Lyn said.
He said that, under the new regulations to be imposed next year, companies will be given up to a year to control the quality of their effluents. After the grace period, if nothing is done, they will be slapped with substantial fines.
