Res­i­dents of Sook­nanan Trace in Clax­ton Bay have called on the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) to in­ter­vene and stop the op­er­a­tion of a scrap iron deal­er in their com­mu­ni­ty.

The res­i­dents say the op­er­a­tions have neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed their health and count­less com­plaints over the last six months to the EMA, the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for the area David Lee, have been ig­nored.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty and spoke to sev­er­al res­i­dents, in­clud­ing re­tired fish­er­man, Bhadase Sook­nanan.

He lives di­rect­ly op­po­site the op­er­a­tion and said the busi­ness op­er­ates from 7 am to 7 pm dai­ly.

Sook­nanan said the noise from the cut­ting of met­al and the stench of burn­ing wires have be­come too much to bear.

“I have a bedrid­den wife I can’t even open my win­dow to get fresh air for her, I worked for years and built my home for our com­fort and now we are suf­fer­ing,” Sook­nanan said.

He said sev­er­al res­i­dents have com­plained to the busi­ness own­er and the em­ploy­ees but were threat­ened and cursed in re­sponse.

“We do all the pro­ce­dures from the po­lice to EMA, every­thing, no­body takes any heed. When they cut­ting the cop­per and burn­ing the cop­per wire, and you tell them, they cussing you, they threat­en you. Last week they lit a fire to burn wire about 1 o’clock in the day, my house was fill­ing up with smoke and when I came out­side to tell them about it, I lost my tem­per and use a curse word. They  threat­ened to kill me.”

As he sat at his wife’s bed­side play­ing with her hair, Sook­nanan could hard­ly con­tain his emo­tions.

“Some­times I would chance to open the win­dow around 5 in the evening just so she could get some breeze…but right through they will be burn­ing things and the smoke will start to come in­side,” he said, wip­ing away his tears.

His neigh­bour, Vashti Jaglal said she too has called the po­lice on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions. She said the busi­ness own­ers would of­ten park their ve­hi­cles loaded with scrap iron in the street, block­ing her ac­cess to her home.

“You can’t tell them any­thing, they will start to cuss and make threats. Every time the po­lice come, they will just talk to them and leave,” Jaglal said.

She said on one oc­ca­sion, she made a re­port af­ter an em­ploy­ee ex­posed his pri­vate part to her and her two young chil­dren.

“He walked right up to my fence and ex­posed him­self. When the po­lice came, they told them to knock up some gal­vanise to make a bath­room and they left.”

Jaglal said her six-year-old son is asth­mat­ic and of­ten has to be tak­en to her doc­tor when the busi­ness­man lights fires dur­ing his op­er­a­tion.

She said dur­ing a meet­ing last week with Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for the area David Lee, she ex­pressed her con­cerns about the ef­fects of the op­er­a­tion on her health and that of her chil­dren.

She claimed Lee’s re­sponse was cal­lous and un­car­ing.

“You know what he told me in front of two oth­er neigh­bours who were present? If I am in so much dis­tress, my hus­band could stay here and I could go and rent for six months. How could that ever be fair? He al­so said the EMA can’t help us, the Cor­po­ra­tion can’t help us and he can’t help us.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Shan­ti Ram­dath claimed the deal­er dumps and burns tyres on her prop­er­ty and re­peat­ed re­quests for him to stop have been ig­nored.

Own­er re­sponds

A man who claimed to be the own­er of the busi­ness and iden­ti­fied him­self as Stephen Lewis de­nied ever get­ting any com­plaints from the res­i­dents.

Lewis said Jaglal was al­ways “look­ing for trou­ble” and added, “If you go in the sta­tion, you will see how much re­ports she make against us. We don’t in­ter­fere with her at all. They nev­er told me they had any prob­lems with my busi­ness be­fore.”

One of his em­ploy­ees, who re­fused to give his name, warned that if the scrap iron deal­er was shut down, crime would in­crease in the area.

When Lewis was asked if he had a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) from the EMA, he said, “Yes.”

When he was asked to present the CEC, Lewis said it was in his cousin’s pos­ses­sion and he had been try­ing to get in con­tact with her.

He said he would send a rel­a­tive to col­lect it and show it to the news team be­fore they left the area.

How­ev­er, about half an hour lat­er, the rel­a­tive re­turned emp­ty-hand­ed.

“She say she in a meet­ing, she can’t come out to give us it now,” the rel­a­tive said.

An­oth­er rel­a­tive said the CEC had ex­pired but Lewis’s cousin was “tak­ing care of it.”

The coun­cil­lor for the area, Na­dia Khan, con­tact­ed this re­porter short­ly af­ter our news team ar­rived in the area.

Khan said she was “dis­tressed” to learn that the news team was there.

She said she was aware of the com­plaints by the res­i­dents and would dis­cuss those com­plaints dur­ing a meet­ing with the EMA lat­er in the day.

No CEC, EMA to in­ves­ti­gate

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) on the sta­tus of the Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance for the op­er­a­tion of a scrap iron deal­er in Sook­nanan Trace Ex­ten­sion, Clax­ton Bay.

EMA’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Hay­den Ro­mano said the au­thor­i­ty had re­ceived no com­plaints about the op­er­a­tion of a scrap iron yard in the area.

“We have checked our records and we do not have a CEC ap­pli­ca­tion for this lo­ca­tion. Based on your re­port, we will in­ves­ti­gate.”