Public urged to demand more answers from NEPA regarding Harbour View fish kill

 

Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) is urging the public to demand more answers from the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) regarding Saturday's massive fish kill in Harbour View, St. Andrew.

 

According to NEPA, preliminary investigations revealed that the fish kill is due to a red tide occurring in the Kingston Harbour resulting in oxygen depletion.

 

Speaking Monday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106 FM, Chief Executive Officer of JET, Dr. Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie said the public must not simply accept that the fish kill is due to red tide since there is something that causes the algal bloom. 

 

"Coming out of this incident, we need to have dialogue - the officials, the regulatory authorities, so that's the NEPA, the NFA, the Harbour View Citizens Association, all of these different groups. They need to come together, have dialogue and say, please explain it to us and let us see that this does not happen again," she suggested, lamenting the frequency of fish kills. 

 

Dr. Rodriguez-Moodie has called for the National Environment and Planning Agency to improve its management of the environment.

 

She wants NEPA to strengthen its enforcement activities to ensure companies that harm the environment face serious consequences for their actions. 

 

Pointing to previous fish kills in the Rio Cobre in St. Catherine, Dr. Rodriguez-Moodie noted that no environmental permit was ever suspended for the company responsible for the pollution. 

 

"They've been able to continue operating throughout this entire thing. They've been able to continue earning their income and their livelihood while the fishers have suffered," she complained. 

 

"It's really unfair and we see this all the time with environmental justice issues, that it is the poor, it is those that are unable to afford legal advice and so forth that are the most impacted and it's really unfair and we need to have an environmental regulatory agency that takes a more proactive approach in monitoring the environment," Dr. Rodriguez-Moodie demanded.