With the admission of having ‘dropped the ball’, in village cricket, when fielding, if you dropped a ball, you lost your opportunity to bat when your turn came around, in this scenario we see a similar trend. We have big players dropping the ball and still want to bat. And seriously speaking now, I’m waiting on “Tar I” to file an injunction to halt the quarry project until an environmental impact study and its recommendations are submitted for public scrutiny and acceptance. And if “Tar-I” wants to start a public petition, I will be one of the first to sign and so will be thousands of Vincentians at home and abroad.
After all, this is a project that will impact the lives persons in two ways, many losers and few winners. This and all new government projects must be a win win for all stakeholders, that is the only way to guarantee faith in any political directorate. The scant disregard to farmers and residents of Chateaubelair reeks of disrespect and disdain for some of the same people who voted this government into power, all of them regretting marking that X now.
We are just recovering from a volcanic eruption and from interviews via the local media including IWN, people need food and not stones to eat. The project must be halted until an up to date environmental study is done, peer reviewed and findings/recommendations made public. Then it has been mooted that some of the aggregate is to be stored at Lowmans Bay, it better had not be on the beach, because if that beach is touched, a tsunami of dissent will drown the aggressors.
Blasting operations in that area of Richmond will more than likely have a negative impact on the nearby Dark View falls which is less than half a mile away, and will affect the livelihood of stakeholders in the tourism sector … taxis, tour bus operators, vendors of food and souvenirs, tour guides and importantly, the operations at the Richmond Vale Academy and local tri tri catchers. Being so close to Dark View falls, regular blasting, can and will create instability in the cliff face at Dark View and will also affect travel in that area.
Some years ago there was a fatal accident at Ray-No’s quarry in St. Lucia when a container that contained explosives was accidentally detonated killing four, and injuring others, a blast so strong that it measured close to magnitude 4 on seismometers. Ray-No also said in a TV interview a year after that blast, that the police in St. Lucia did not approve or renew his license to use explosives. If due diligence was done by this government, we would have found out why the police in St. Lucia refused to grant him permission to use explosives. Explosives should only be kept in special buildings and when used, under the supervision of a senior police officer above the rank of corporal.
Yes, the government by their own admission have “dropped the ball” big time and have lost their turn to bat. Let this project be put on hold, because if the outcome of the environmental impact study is negative and the project has to stop like the geo-thermal and Indian Bay projects, then irreparable damage would have already been inflicted on our environment. According to a female farmer from Fitz Hughes, “Leh Ray-No go blow dung de two Peetons in Lucia, den dey go ha stone fo mo dan 60 years. Ray-No, go to hell, nah come ya !!!”