Jamaica residents file claim over mining permit
Bnamericas Published: Friday, December 18, 2020 You have reached your limit of free pageviews this month (5/5)
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The fight to block mining in the ecologically sensitive Puerto Bueno Mountains on Jamaica’s northern coast is heading to the Supreme Court as residents are suing the Government and the mining company for alleged breaches of constitutional rights.
The eight claimants filed their claim in the Supreme Court on Thursday against the attorney general, the Natural Resources and Conservation Authority (NRCA), and Bengal Development Limited, the owners of the 569-acre property in St Ann.
They are also seeking a permanent injunction against mining on the property.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness has been at the centre of the controversy after overturning, in his capacity as environment minister, the May 2020 decision of the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) not to grant a permit for the mining of limestone because of the land’s ecological value.
THE EDITOR, Madam:
There is the continued argument that quarrying should be allowed in the Puerto Bueno Mountain since there was one there before. To say now that a quarry should be allowed there because there was one there before is unfair. Two wrongs don’t make a right. The fact that there was quarrying there before does not justify reopening such activities in that location.
Residents of Puerto Bueno lived through untold hardships during that time, including uncompensated damage to property from excessive dust and blasting; loss of income from the closure of villa businesses due to difficulty renting these properties; loss of jobs from said closures; the proliferation of illegal cookshops and vending at the roadside, with excessive garbage and lack of sanitary conveniences for neither vendors nor patrons; excessive noise disturbance from the constant truck traffic on the road; and health problems, mostly respiratory, among residents. We cannot be asked to pay the price again
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