When I use my column space to complain about poor service, it isn’t simply to seek personal redress. I believe in the power of a voice, no matter how solitary it might seem. The responses to my last column where I had described my experiences with two service providers, TSTT …
Read More »Vaneisa: Suffering for silence, with missing fireworks legislation and EMA inactivity
Nearly 80 per cent of the people responding to a survey done by the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) said fireworks affected them negatively. Without knowing the extent of the survey, it is still a large and significant proportion. Another of their surveys said the majority of the animals affected (60 …
Read More »Vaneisa: The uncaring voice of silence—what is the point of the EMA?
For decades, the approach and departure of festive occasions—Carnival, Independence Day, Divali, Christmas, Old Year’s Night—have elicited desperate missives. Complaints about unbearable levels of noise from unrelenting sound systems and fireworks have poured out to the impervious Environmental Management Authority (EMA). Nothing’s changed. On its website, the EMA describes four …
Read More »Daly Bread: Going out with a bang! AG’s fireworks ‘solution’ exacerbates the problem
Cabinet members Stuart Young, Clarence Rambharat and Marvin Gonzalez are to be commended for taking a public stand on legislation regarding the sale and use of fireworks—in disagreement with the proposed legislation with which the Attorney General is taking centre-stage. The AG has again gone out on a limb, unaccompanied …
Read More »Vaneisa: A matter of rights, responsibility, and respect for your neighbours
It was just after midnight, Old Year’s night, when fireworks pierced the roof and ceiling of my niece’s bedroom, landing on the bed where she slept. Fortunately, her baby son was not lying next to her as the noise and smouldering embers on her sheet woke her up, and no …
Read More »Hearn: Cocorite and environs—and God knows where else—at risk due to dangerous pesticide!
“[…] Through a friend I was able to find out that Paraquat is in fact on the radar of three ministries: Health, Agriculture, and Local Government, because of its danger to the environment and also as a method for suicide. “[…] The residential Cocorite coastal area where the spraying is …
Read More »Salaam: New EMA policy on water pollution is welcomed news, now for education and enforcement
It was welcoming news when I heard of the Environmental Management Authority’s serious stance on water pollution and its amended policy that would effectively deal with companies and organisations that flagrantly and without care pollute our waterways, rivers and seas. Why did this take so long in coming? It is …
Read More »Daly Bread: Beads, beaches and business risk; why Sandals didn’t fit Trinidad and Tobago
As is well known, Manhattan, New York City—home of Wall Street and some of the most expensive real estate in the world—is an island. The Dutch bought it in 1626 from the First Peoples who were the occupiers at the time. It is uncertain what or how the Dutch paid …
Read More »Dear Editor: Respect noise pollution laws! The EMA must turn deaf ear to Red Ants’ rubbish
“The law is not there to support a noisy culture; in fact, culture isn’t just out there, it’s man-made, in constant flux. The law is designed to help to shape the culture in ways that ensure harmony between legality and morality. And when that relationship is perverted what you have …
Read More »SALAAM: What global warming might mean for T&T; let’s wake up and smell the calamity;
If a visitor to your house confessed to you that he is a pluviophile, what would you do? Lock the kids in their rooms, not let him out of your sight and call the police at the first opportunity? Sorry, you got that wrong! That’s a paedophile! Farmers, gardeners and …
Read More »Salaam: Is Ibis poaching a scarlet feather in T&T’s red, white and black cap?
Have you had some wild meat to eat lately? A little lappe, some gouti, maybe some manicou or guana? How about some tattoo, leatherback turtle or perhaps a little Scarlet Ibis? If you can truthfully answer no that last question, then you’re just not in the game—and Trinidad and Tobago …
Read More »Dear Editor: OSHA, EMA are sitting on their hands as Petrotrin poisons Gulf of Paria!
“Petrotrin’s top management is guilty of the criminal action known as ‘reckless indifference’. […] BP was fined billions by the US authorities for the Deep Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. […] Petrotrin continues to do what BP did in the Gulf of Mexico with no significant cost to …
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