En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan has or­dered an end to all quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions in the Ravine Sable/Ca­paro re­gion with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. This fol­lows the col­lapse of a bank of the Ca­paro Riv­er dur­ing re­cent heavy rain­fall.

The Min­istry said it has "de­ter­mined that the ac­tiv­i­ty of sev­en un­li­censed op­er­a­tors an one li­censed op­er­a­tor is the cause of the se­vere ero­sion and the cor­re­spond­ing prob­lems with flood­ing be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced in the area."

A team of min­istry of­fi­cials re­port­ed that quar­ry­ing of un­con­sol­i­dat­ed plas­ter­ing sand de­posits had ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed the sta­bil­i­ty of the slope and drainage since ex­ca­va­tion works were be­ing con­duct­ed in close prox­im­i­ty to roads and wa­ter cours­es.

A min­istry state­ment said of­fi­cials not­ed an em­bank­ment near a ravine was ex­ca­vat­ed, caus­ing the Ca­paro Riv­er to over­flow its banks lead­ing to flood­ing and sub­mer­sion of close to 30 acres of land cre­at­ing a la­goon. "The as­sis­tance of the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit of T&T has been sought with a view to giv­ing ef­fect to this or­der," the state­ment said.