NEPA to develop database of harmful chemicals
THE National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) will be developing a Pollution Release Transfer Register (PRTR) for Jamaica.
The PRTR, which is expected to be implemented next month, is an environmental database or inventory of potentially harmful releases to the air, water and soil. It will also document wastes transported from industry and dump sites for treatment and disposal.
Dr Mearle Barrett, director of environmental management department at NEPA, told participants at the first regional conference on PRTR held recently at Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, that “there were policy issues that have to be addressed for Jamaica to move along the path of sustainable development”.
One of these policy issues relates to the “Community Right to Know Principle” that came out of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Conference.
Minister of Land and Environment Horace Dalley said the effectiveness of programmes such as PRTR was based on the fact that they must address the priorities and needs, economic and social realities of the country in which they are being implemented.
The PRTR will also assist the productive sector to achieve a balance between economic growth and safeguarding the environment. It will also assist businesses by promoting practices to reduce and manage risk as well as reducing the source of emissions.
But, in order to facilitate the implementation of this database, certain regulations need to be in place in Jamaica.
NEPA, which has the authority under the National Resources Conservation Authority Act of 1996, is in the process of developing and implementing such regulations that are deemed necessary for the facilitation of register.
It is expected that the development and implementation of these new regulations will allow Jamaica to become a part of the Basil Convention, which is the international treaty concerning the trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste.
Such regulatory framework will include the development of Air Quality Regulation, the Sewage Effluent Regulation, the Trade Effluent Regulation and the National Resources Conservation Control of Movement of Hazardous Waste Regulation.
