The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty is con­cerned that the roll back of re­main­ing COVID 19 re­stric­tions on Mon­day can lead to a spike in noise pol­lu­tion. Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, the EMA not­ed the harm­ful im­pact of noise and that noise re­lat­ed com­plaints were the num­ber one type of com­plaint re­ceived via its hot­line.

Ac­cord­ing to the Au­thor­i­ty," The EMA ac­knowl­edges the harm­ful im­pact of noise on all and rec­og­nizes that coun­tries around the world con­tin­ue to grap­ple with this is­sue. In fact, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion re­ports that en­vi­ron­men­tal noise is among the top en­vi­ron­men­tal risks to health, glob­al­ly"

The lift­ing of re­stric­tions saw the lim­it on so­cial gath­er­ings lift­ed and safe zones dis­con­tin­ued among oth­er ad­just­ments to the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions.

The EMA has re­mind­ed that cit­i­zens are re­quired to ap­ply for a noise vari­a­tion per­mit if a planned event may gen­er­ate noise that will ex­ceed the per­mis­si­ble sound lev­el for the area.
" This may in­clude par­ties, fetes and sports days us­ing sound am­pli­fy­ing equip­ment"

The Au­thor­i­ty is ap­peal­ing to fete-pro­mot­ers, event or­ga­niz­ers, bar-own­ers and to the gen­er­al pub­lic to be re­spon­si­ble and cog­nizant of the dam­ag­ing ef­fects of noise pol­lu­tion.
Un­der the Noise Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Rules, 2001 (as Amend­ed) (NPCR), the EMA is re­quired to mea­sure sound us­ing a sound lev­el or noise me­ter for at least thir­ty 30 min­utes.

The noise must be con­tin­u­ous, and it has to be mea­sured on the prop­er­ty bound­ary line. The NPCR does not give the EMA the leg­isla­tive au­thor­i­ty to ad­dress is­sues such as noisy ve­hi­cles, loud­speak­ers, and fire­works.

Ac­cord­ing to the Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, ASP Sheri­don Hill, the po­lice will be mon­i­tor­ing and en­forc­ing the law which un­der The Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Chap. 11:02 Sec­tion 70 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act states that any per­son who caus­es a nui­sance to the pub­lic is li­able to a fine of One Thou­sand Five Hun­dred Dol­lars ($1,500.00) or im­pris­on­ment for six (6) months.

Re­porter: Jesse Ramdeo