Letter of the Day | Collapse of pollution case demands scrutiny

THE EDITOR, Madam:

On June 23, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) announced it had discontinued the case against Wisynco Ltd. for an alleged breach of Section 11 of the Wild Life Protection Act. The reason given was that National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) failed to collect sufficient evidence to prove what substance was discharged into the Rio Cobre on July 18, 2023, or where it came from.

Jamaica has long struggled with pollution in the Rio Cobre, a river relied on for drinking water, farming, fishing, and recreation. Yet in this case, where a broken pipe was seen discharging fluid into the river and dead fish were found along its banks, NEPA did not take a single water sample from beneath the pipe, or from substance that flowed through the pipe itself. Nor were the contents of the pipeline sampled at the Wisynco source.

This was not a legal technicality. It was a failure of basic environmental investigation which begs many questions including: Was this an isolated lapse or does it point to a systemic issue at NEPA? Why did NEPA file the legal case at all, given the weakness of the evidence? Who reviewed the actions of the NEPA officer who visited the site? Given the many sources of pollution in the Rio Cobre, why was no upstream sample taken?

NEPA responded to public concern on June 25, stating they believed the evidence, though circumstantial, was sufficient. They admitted they did not collect water from the pipe because it was ‘too high’ above the river. They didn’t collect the dead fish along the banks because they were rotting, and although fish were observed gasping for air in the river, none were retrieved for testing, because they were ‘inaccessible’, while no samples were taken upstream to rule out other possible sources.

In a follow-up statement on June 26, the DPP released details that only deepened public concern. Under questioning, NEPA’s enforcement officer admitted that one of the few samples submitted was taken from near Dyke Road, an area also impacted by the Soapberry Wastewater Treatment Plant. This introduced doubt about the source of the pollution and the cause of fish deaths. Even more concerning, the officer never visited the Wisynco facility, despite witnessing a pipe from the facility leaking into the river.

JET welcomes the scrutiny of the ODPP in these matters, but regrets it did not come sooner.

It is deeply concerning that NEPA considered this an adequate investigation. Now that the public has a clearer picture of what was—and wasn’t—done, NEPA’s defence is not just insufficient. It’s alarming.

The Rio Cobre has been inflicted with multiple pollution events over the years, many of them unresolved, several still before the courts. This latest case sends a dangerous message, that polluters can act with impunity, because our state institutions are either unwilling or unable to gather the necessary evidence to hold them to account.

We urge the authorities to launch an investigation into why this failure occurred, who will be held accountable, and how Jamaica’s regulatory systems will be strengthened going forward.

JAMAICA ENVIRONMENT

TRUST