Shal­iza Has­sanali

Two sep­a­rate tests con­duct­ed by the Caribbean In­dus­tri­al Re­search In­sti­tute (Cariri) for the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) and Johnathan Be­lix Foun­da­tion for traces of mer­cury in Ari­ma's wa­ter have come up with con­flict­ing re­sults. So much so that Joth Singh, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and CEO of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) was un­able to draw a con­clu­sion from the re­sults. In Feb­ru­ary, founder of the Foun­da­tion, Roger Be­lix, paid Cariri $4,000 to take sam­ples of tap wa­ter from the Ari­ma Boys' RC and Saf­fire En­gi­neer­ing for analy­sis, af­ter he dis­cov­ered a cyst on his kid­ney, which he said could have de­vel­oped from drink­ing wa­ter con­tain­ing high lev­els of mer­cury.

"I al­so dis­cov­ered that a num­ber of peo­ple were dy­ing in Ari­ma from res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es, which prompt­ed me to get the tests done," Be­lix said. Both sam­ples, Be­lix said, were analysed for lead, mer­cury, cad­mi­um, ar­senic alu­mini­um, mi­cro­tox acute tox­i­c­i­ty as­say, Het­erotroph­ic Plate Count, enu­mer­a­tion of E coli and To­tal Co­l­iforms on Feb­ru­ary 4. While the Unit­ed States En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency's (USEPA) max­i­mum con­t­a­m­i­nant lev­el (the high­est ac­cept­able con­t­a­m­i­nant lev­el in drink­ing wa­ter) for mer­cury is 0.002 mg/L, Be­lix said "This lim­it was ex­ceed­ed in both sam­ples test­ed. It was 0.003," based on Cariri's ser­vice project re­port, dat­ed April 7.

Be­lix blamed the Gua­napo Land­fill site, es­tab­lished by SWM­COL more than 30 years ago on a wa­ter­shed area, where chem­i­cals are in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly dumped by com­pa­nies. "These chem­i­cals af­ter a pe­ri­od of time seep through the earth and en­ter the wa­ter that pass­es through the near­by Chime Riv­er." Be­lix al­so ar­gued that the chem­i­cals emit gas­es when ex­posed to the sun. "The wa­ter then trav­els to WASA's wa­ter treat­ment plant and goes in­to the taps, which is what we drink."

Sam­ple tests sat­is­fied WHO guide­line

Fol­low­ing the up­roar over WASA's wa­ter qual­i­ty, Cariri was re­tained to do two sep­a­rate tests for the Wa­ter Au­thor­i­ty. The first sam­ple was tak­en on Au­gust 12, while on Oc­to­ber 12 eleven sam­ples from dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tions in and around Ari­ma were test­ed. "The re­sults for the analy­sis of mer­cury in the wa­ter sam­ples show that all sam­ples test­ed sat­is­fied the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion's guide­line val­ue for mer­cury in drink­ing wa­ter," Cariri stat­ed in its re­port, dat­ed Oc­to­ber 23. Ques­tioned last Thurs­day about the re­sults of the Foun­da­tion's tests, Ellen Lewis, WASA's Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions said, "We can on­ly com­ment on the re­sults of the tests done by Cariri on our be­half," adding that the sam­ples drawn for WASA proved neg­a­tive of any con­t­a­m­i­nants, in­clud­ing mer­cury.

Pressed as to why WASA did two tests weeks apart, Lewis said pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the wa­ter sup­ply was of para­mount im­por­tance to WASA: "We in­ves­ti­gate all com­plaints that raise wa­ter qual­i­ty and safe­ty is­sues from wher­ev­er they may em­anate." She al­so de­nied that the land­fill is used for dis­pos­al of chem­i­cal waste. "SWM­COL has been mon­i­tor­ing the leachates and they con­firm that there is no ev­i­dence of mer­cury in their test re­sults." To al­lay the fears of cit­i­zens in Ari­ma, Lewis said WASA had ad­dressed the mat­ter in a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view that was broad­cast on Sep­tem­ber 30. "We have al­so met sep­a­rate­ly with the Be­lix Foun­da­tion to treat with any con­cern they may have. The whole na­ture of wa­ter re­quires broad-based part­ner­ships and we en­cour­age this as it is part of our in­te­grat­ed wa­ter re­source man­age­ment ap­proach," the com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er said.

EMA: Con­flict­ing re­sults

Singh ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that the EMA re­ceived a re­port and a let­ter, both re­fer­ring to wa­ter qual­i­ty test­ing in the Ari­ma area, from the Foun­da­tion on June 25, 2009. "As a con­se­quence, WASA fa­cil­i­tat­ed a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing at the Ari­ma Town Hall on Oc­to­ber 13, 2009, to hear the con­cerns of res­i­dents on a num­ber of is­sues, in­clud­ing the claim of sus­pect­ed wa­ter con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in the area," Singh ex­plained. The EMA and oth­er key stake­hold­ers at­tend­ed and par­tic­i­pat­ed at the com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing. "At this time the EMA is un­able to draw any con­clu­sions since the in­de­pen­dent wa­ter qual­i­ty test­ing done by the Jonathan Be­lix Foun­da­tion and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty showed con­flict­ing re­sults," Singh re­vealed.

Singh said WASA gave the as­sur­ance that it would be car­ry­ing out fur­ther wa­ter qual­i­ty test­ing and would present the re­sults at the next com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing.

No ev­i­dence of mer­cury found

Ir­ma Bur­kett, Cariri's Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Of­fi­cer, when con­tact­ed last Fri­day, said a con­clu­sion can­not be drawn from one sam­ple of wa­ter: "Sam­ples have to be tak­en and test­ed over a pe­ri­od of time to give an ac­cu­rate find­ing." Bur­kett al­so con­firmed that the Foun­da­tion brought in its sam­ples to Cariri. "We don't know if the wa­ter was col­lect­ed the prop­er way. We have sam­pling tech­niques. It's not just about go­ing out and col­lect­ing a bot­tle of wa­ter for test­ing," she point­ed out. Bur­kett said af­ter the Foun­da­tion start­ed com­plain­ing about qual­i­ty of wa­ter in Ari­ma, WASA sought their ser­vices.

"Wa­ter sam­ples were col­lect­ed by our tech­ni­cians over a pe­ri­od of time and from var­i­ous sites for test­ing. And we have nev­er found this ev­i­dence of mer­cury that Mr Be­lix had said was there. Sure enough, we found it in the two sam­ples he had brought us," she said. Bur­kett said in some tests you get ei­ther no traces of mer­cury or neg­li­gi­ble amounts. With­in the last three decades, Bur­kett said Cariri's tests have been, by-and-large, ac­cu­rate.

SASCHA WIL­SON Guardian South Bu­reau

A Moru­ga fa­ther made the ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice yes­ter­day, when he lost his life try­ing to save his two young chil­dren from drown­ing.

Nigel Stoute, 38, a labour­er, of Preau Street in St Mary's Vil­lage, was swept un­der­wa­ter by strong cur­rents at the riv­er mouth at La Ruf­fin, Moru­ga.

Up to late yes­ter­day, Coast Guard divers were still search­ing for his body.

What be­gan as a fam­i­ly fun out­ing to La Ruf­fin beach turned to tragedy when, short­ly af­ter mid­day, Stoute's chil­dren–a nine-year-old girl and five-year-old boy– got in­to dif­fi­cul­ties while bathing near the riv­er mouth.

Alert­ed by his chil­dren's screams for help, Stoute quick­ly swam to­wards them, but he, too, got in­to dif­fi­cul­ties and went un­der.

Hear­ing the com­mo­tion, a pass­er-by rushed to their aid. Us­ing a piece of bam­boo and a fish­ing net, the man was able to res­cue the chil­dren.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, by this time Stoute had dis­ap­peared un­der wa­ter.

Cpl Ramdeen of Moru­ga po­lice is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.