Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed is de­fend­ing its in­ten­tion to de­mol­ish a chick­en farm which sits on land it owns in Pe­nal, say­ing it is a mat­ter of safe­ty. But the farmer is adamant that the com­pa­ny is telling un­truths.

He now wants a meet­ing with the com­pa­ny to find a com­pro­mise as he now faces the daunt­ing re­al­i­ty of be­com­ing home­less.

On Mon­day, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed the com­plaints of An­tho­ny Corn­wall who claimed that, with­out warn­ing or pri­or no­tice, masked gun­men pur­port­ing to be from the State com­pa­ny came to the farm in Lowkie Trace Pe­nal and ad­vised Corn­wall to sell his birds and dis­man­tle the pens.

But in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the en­er­gy com­pa­ny said the farm was in close prox­im­i­ty to oil pipelines, a pro­duc­tion sta­tion and a com­pres­sor sta­tion.

“It is there­fore in breach of set­back dis­tances which have been out­lined by the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant health and safe­ty risk to not on­ly the tres­passers but al­so to neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties,” the com­pa­ny said in its re­lease.

In re­sponse to what it called “unau­tho­rised oc­cu­pa­tion”, Her­itage said two no­tices to cease and de­sist from con­duct­ing ac­tiv­i­ties on the lands were is­sued on March 5 and April 20, 2024.

“The il­le­gal oc­cu­piers of the said lands have re­fused to com­ply with the cease-and-de­sist no­tices, and have con­tin­ued their ac­tiv­i­ties un­abat­ed,” Her­itage said.

De­spite Corn­wall telling Guardian Me­dia that he built the chick­en pens in 2019, Her­itage claims that the com­mence­ment of op­er­a­tions of the chick­en farm start­ed this year.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns ex­pressed by Corn­wall for his safe­ty, af­ter claims that he felt in­tim­i­dat­ed by the armed men, the com­pa­ny said, “All steps tak­en by Her­itage per­son­nel with re­spect to ad­dress­ing this il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty are both au­tho­rised and close­ly mon­i­tored, leav­ing no room for any un­to­ward de­mands and or be­hav­iour on the part of any Her­itage per­son­nel.

Her­itage said by law it is em­pow­ered to pro­tect its as­sets and added that in the past it had shown le­nien­cy.

“Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) un­der which Her­itage falls, has an ex­treme­ly well-doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of mak­ing its non-op­er­a­tional land hold­ings avail­able to the State, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, and law-abid­ing in­di­vid­u­als who make the req­ui­site ap­pli­ca­tion and await ap­proval for the ap­pro­pri­ate use there­of, but not lim­it­ed to farm­ing,” the com­pa­ny added.

When Guardian Me­dia brought the com­pa­ny’s state­ment to the at­ten­tion of Corn­wall yes­ter­day, he ex­pressed sur­prise at the claims made.

“The sta­tions which they are speak­ing about are not close to me, more than two to three hun­dred feet away from me,” Corn­wall said.

He al­so con­tend­ed, “The pens are close to pipelines but not ac­tive pipelines. And peo­ple used to steal the pipes, and I used to stop them. Amal­ga­mat­ed used to come to me to find out who steal­ing. So, I used to stop peo­ple from in­vad­ing, I would come out and stop them from try­ing to thief. But we have no ac­tive pipes close to me.”

With re­spect to the no­tices Her­itage claimed it served to the chick­en farmer he replied, “One no­tice they gave me in March or Feb­ru­ary and I was dig­ging a piece of dirt and they told me no ex­ca­vat­ing and I stopped. And they nev­er told me to leave, all the pa­pers said was to stop ex­ca­vat­ing.”

Corn­wall al­so chal­lenged Her­itage’s claims that he con­struct­ed the chick­en pens this year. He sought to clar­i­fy that he com­plet­ed work this year but it com­menced in 2019.

The Pe­nal farmer, who is a fa­ther of four, now wants a meet­ing with a Her­itage of­fi­cial be­cause with­out his farm he will be home­less.

“My next move is to get a meet­ing with Her­itage, the CEO or some­body be­cause I can’t face de­mo­li­tion, I have work­ers, I have live­stock. My house burnt down, and I am stay­ing by the farm, it’s the farm I’m liv­ing by, and my bed­room is a ham­mock,” he lament­ed.

Corn­wall said six work­ers on his farm al­so de­pend on him for work.

He pre­vi­ous­ly told Guardian Me­dia that he and his fa­ther plant­ed on the land for over 50 years while it was owned by Trin­toc and then Petrotrin.