Martin Henry
SUNDAY NIGHT'S jolt, unnervingly at the same time of year as the Great Port Royal earthquake, reminds us of how vulnerable we are to natural environmental forces that we can't control.
The Asian/African tsunami is still painfully fresh in our minds. Human 'development' action might have made even that catastrophic disaster worse than it might have been. Scientists are pointing out that coral mining, coastal modification, and other instances of human development in Sri Lanka helped last Decem-ber's tsunami sweep even further inland than it might have. How are our own actions contributing to the impact of disaster events here?
What we can't control we can learn to survive better. The 1907 earthquake took some 800 lives and caused some £2 million of property damage. Every building in Kingston was damaged. But one of the results of that disastrous quake was an improvement of building codes and regulations which produced more earthquake-resistant structures than the earlier brick buildings. The Earthquake Unit is blaming the damage to houses in Clarendon at the epicentre of the earthquake to poor construction without adequate reinforcement.
GULLY GOVERNMENT
In 1933, during the night of August 14/15, a disastrous flood claimed 53 lives and destroyed over 300,000 acres of property in Kingston and lower St. Andrew. The flood followed heavy rains, which had been falling for several weeks, when the gullies of the Liguanea Plain overflowed, sweeping away houses and drowning people asleep in them. The subsequent activities of a 'gully government' brought flooding in the Kingston Metropo-litan Area under reasonable control. The neglect and decay of that gully work is alarming, as is the failure to manage flooding elsewhere.
The KMA faces other more recent problems. Dr. Willard Pinnock of the UWI Department of Chemistry is monitoring air quality from 11 sites in the city, for example, and results will be available soon. We know something of the smoke hazard from the Riverton landfill that the city, particularly its western side, has to face. And we have heard of increasing levels of respiratory illnesses.
ENVIRONMENT CONFERENCE
Yesterday and today the Jamaica Institute of Environ-mental Professionals stage their biennial conference themed 'Sustainable Development - Myths and Realities'. These are the people who generate and apply the environmental scientific data on which we have to rely to mitigate the impact of natural events we can't control and to attain sustainable development through responsible use of the Jamaican environment. The conference covers such areas as sustainable energy, sustainable agriculture, waste management, coastal zone management, biodiversity, disaster management, and environmental governance and planning.
Pinnock himself and colleagues present a policy paper 'Towards a Sustainable Air Pollution Moni-toring Network for Kingston'. To beat the high costs of conventional air quality monitoring equipment in a low-funding environment like Jamaica, the Pinnock team has developed and is testing low-cost alternatives. "The main reason for the insufficiency of air pollution data," they say, "is the lack of funds to spend on providing the equipment and the manpower needed. The cost of conventional equipment used to monitor the major pollutants is relatively high, this being dictated largely by the need to have good accuracy and precision in the measurement of substances present at relatively low concentrations."
But, "analysis of the problem suggests ... that the really critical judgements that are needed to control pollution and pollution-related illnesses in any region or country, can be made and justified on the basis of data that is much less precise than these expensive conventional equipment provide," the research team says.
They have developed by adaptation inexpensive 'passive monitors' for measuring concen-trations of nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone and carbon monoxide. And the group is working on a monitor for solid particles in the air. This should be of particular value in tracking the smog effects of landfill smoke and in the diesel use debate.
POLLUTION AND RESPIRATORY ILLNESS
The Pinnock team has a nose on the possible link between air quality and the incidence of respiratory illnesses. With characteristic scientific caution they say, "It has always been assumed here in Jamaica that increases in the incidence of respiratory illness, which health personnel talk about from time to time, are due to the state of pollution of the atmosphere. This seems quite a reasonable assumption. Unfortunately, both the 'fact' of the increase in respiratory illnesses and its attribution to air pollution, in the Jamaican situation, must be categorised as speculation because there is hardly any data (or analysis, in the former case) which is extensive enough in time or space to support either claim."
We look forward to the data from the Pinnock team which they hope will facilitate decision-making about pollution control measures.
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
