GUY... raises issue on the basis of complaint from the Association of General Practitioners of Jamaica

THE National Environment and Planing Agency (NEPA) and the Water Resources Authority(WRA) have approved a new cemetery proposed for Burnt Ground, Hanover, despite concerns about its possible effect on the area's water supply.

According to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Land and the Environment, Donovan Stanberry, the WRA provided a report last Tuesday, stating that the cemetery would in no way affect the water supply aquifer in the area. NEPA had already approved the project.

Stanberry was responding to a question from government backbencher Dr Morais Guy at last Tuesday's meeting of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Dr Guy noted that several entities had protested against the siting of the cemetery at the particular spot.

STANBERRY ... WRA report says cemetery will not affect water supply acquifer in the area

"There is concern as to whether it will affect the underground water supply as that area is supposed to be an acquifer. I gather that NEPA has given permission," he said prior to asking for an update.

Stanberry responded that he had met with a deputation from the community of Burnt Ground/Shettlewood last Tuesday, prior to the PAC meeting, on the matter.

"The facts are as follows:the Water Resources Authority tabled a report... that says, essentially, that the proposed cemetery will in no way affect the water supply acquifer in that area. They have sited a number of technical facts to support that," he said.

"The issue with the cemetery is that no community wants a cemetery in their vicinity. We have issued a permit on good technical grounds. (But) I think that ... as a matter of policy we frankly have an obligation to engage the communities in consultation and assure them that it will, in no way, harm them. We are going to proceed like that in the future, as a matter of policy," he said.

"But, on both the assessment of the environmental department of the Ministry of Health and the Water Resources Authority, the proposed cemetery will in no way pose any threat at all to the water supply," he added.

Dr Guy, a medical doctor, said that he had raised the issue on the basis of a complaint from the Association of General Practitioners of Jamaica, of which he is a member, that the cemetery was an environmental threat to the area.

In a letter published in the Jamaica Observer on December 11, 2005, the association noted the risk of contamination of the water table located directly below the site.

"The proposed cemetery site is, we understand, about 200 metres above sea level and is considerably higher than many of the springs that are currently being used to bottle spring water. The location by nature is limestone, which is extremely porous and makes easy passage of contaminants to the water table," president of the association Dr Lynval Bloomfield, wrote.

"As health practitioners, who strongly believe in prevention, we urge the relevant authorities to re-evaluate and reconsider the wisdom of the decisions that were made," the letter added.

In another letter to the media in January this year another contributor, Lucius C White, suggested that NEPA was "gambling with the safety of the acquifier by exposing it to contamination by neglect or natural cause." He said that it was "imprudent" to gamble, "especially when one cannot afford to lose".

He said that both the consequences and the probability of failure were much too high to permit the development at that location and suggested that, in the public interest, the minister revoke the approval of the project.

There have also been complaints from the public that assessing the risks from cemeteries to groundwater is not being given sufficient weight in the decision-making process, as cemeteries produce contaminants which can affect soil and groundwater.

In another letter to the press, contaminant hydrogeologist Brian Richardson, noted that estimates on a typical embalmed body suggests it contains approximately 180g of formaldehyde, in around nine litres of embalming fluid, and under typical decomposition processes may lead to an initial effluent concentration of 90mg/l declining to around five mg/l in10 years.

He said that this demonstrated that cemeteries contained polluting bodies.

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