Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Alutrint Ltd has de­nied claims by an­ti-smelter ac­tivists and res­i­dents of La Brea that works are con­tin­u­ing at the Union Es­tate on Alutrint's alu­minum smelter com­plex. So said Josie-Ann Richards, man­ag­er, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions at Alutrint.

An­ti-smelter ac­tivists have said works were con­tin­u­ing at the site de­spite a High Court rul­ing from Jus­tice Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er quash­ing a cer­tifi­cate of en­vi­ron­ment clear­ance (CEC) that gave the com­pa­ny ap­proval to start con­struc­tion. In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Richards said, "Alutrint Ltd has not­ed re­cent re­ports in the me­dia which re­fer to 'res­i­dents' ob­ser­va­tions of con­tin­ued work on the Alutrint smelter site, in (al­leged) de­fi­ance of the re­cent High Court rul­ing."

She said since Alutrint's in­cep­tion, "There has al­ways been full com­pli­ance and due process with all le­gal and rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties in T&T." "This is re­flect­ed in part by our sig­nif­i­cant work per­formed to ad­dress the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty's (EMA) rig­or­ous re­quire­ments dur­ing the CEC ap­pli­ca­tion process, which re­sult­ed in the over­all re­view pe­ri­od of two years," Richards said.

"Present ac­tiv­i­ties on the Alutrint-des­ig­nat­ed site (which is north of the Ves­signy Riv­er and South of Sobo Vil­lage) per­tain to the tem­po­rary work camp (which is sub­ject to a sep­a­rate and ap­proved CEC), and re­me­di­al work on an im­me­di­ate safe­ty haz­ard (that re­sult­ed from the un­sched­uled and im­me­di­ate stop­page of works on June 16), which was com­mu­ni­cat­ed by the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC)–the man­ag­er of Union in­dus­tri­al es­tate–to the EMA as well as the res­i­dents of La Brea." Ac­tivists have re­port­ed see­ing ve­hi­cles and equip­ment en­ter­ing the site. In the mean­time, NEC said works re­lat­ed to the smelter is con­tin­u­ing be­cause sep­a­rate CECs were pro­vid­ed for such works.

"For the ben­e­fit of the gen­er­al pub­lic, the NEC wish­es to ad­vise that works un­der­way at Union in­dus­tri­al es­tate, specif­i­cal­ly the con­struc­tion of the TGU pow­er plant, the tem­po­rary work camp, for Alutrint's EPC con­trac­tor, the Chi­na Na­tion­al Ma­chin­ery and Equip­ment, Im­port and Ex­port Cor­po­ra­tion (CMEC), the new port at Brighton, La Brea, as well as over­all es­tate prepa­ra­tion works are gov­erned by ap­proved CECs, and as such, works will con­tin­ue be­cause they have ap­proved CECs," NEC said in a state­ment.

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