It hangs in the air like smog, infecting people’s throats and sinuses, leaving everything it touches dirty and, in some cases, useless. Now, after months of suffering and complaining, the residents of Runaway Bay in St Ann say they are fed up with the dust from construction work on the second segment of the multi-billion dollar north coast highway.

But Jose Cartellone Construcciones Civiles (JCCC) the company constructing the highway, say the residents will have to put up with the problem for at least the remainder of this month, as, according to the firm, paving will not begin before then.

“They are laying base material on the Runaway Bay section of the highway and this exercise will last another month before paving is done,” Ronald Thwaites, the company’s lawyer told the Sunday Observer a few weeks ago.

But business operators, feeling the pinch in their pockets, and residents, who are forced to spend additional sums on medication for conditions such as asthma and sinusitis, are adamant that enough is not being done to address the problem.

Tiffany, co-owner of Smart Shoppers grocery store, located on the edge of the new road being cut, said her business is being severely hampered.

“The place full a dust! Mi caan sell people dem yah goods yah, dem full a dust!” said the irate shop operator.

“Everytime mi tek dem up mi haffi a clean dem, mi haffi a dust, mi haffi a lock up di window,” she complained.

The Sunday Observer spotted several bottles of wine on a shelf covered with thick layers of dust, substantiating the woman’s charge.

According to Tiffany, she now has a sinus infection and the dust only serves to compound her problem.

Asked what was being done about the dilemma, she replied “Nutten! Because mi cuss day and night and nobody naw do nutten. When dem have a mind dem wet the road.”

One resident, Roy Campbell, who lives on premises adjacent to the shop, said the road is wet once per day but that is insufficient as the water dries out quickly after being sprinkled.

That, Campbell said, was the root of the problem.

But according to Thwaites, Jose Cartellone Construcciones Civiles would continue to try and improve that situation.

“The company regrets the unavoidably dusty conditions,” Thwaites said. “While they have been sprinkling 24 kilometres of roadway daily in an effort to keep the dust down, the company would continue to try and improve the situation.”

But the consequences of the dust problem go beyond businesses losing customers and increased medication costs for people. In at least one case, it has forced a business operator to employ additional staff to help deal with the situation.

“It’s very bad, it’s awful,” Lydia Rose, owner of an open end bar named Villa la Rose told the Sunday Observer. “I have to be washing every minute, wiping every minute, dusting down. I even employ somebody to do the dusting part of it.”

Rose’s business establishment sits across the road from Smart Shoppers.

She lamented the cost to employ additional help and the downturn in business because of the dust.

An elderly lady, Cecelia Murray, who lives in close proximity to the road, said everything in her house has been whitened by the dust.

Natasha Simpson, a bartender at Lovell’s restaurant and bar, also located along a strip being worked on, said the problem has existed for about three months and has wreaked havoc on business.

“We have a lot of dust, as we wipe the counter it dust up again,” Simpson told the Sunday Observer. She said she suffers from asthma and the dust only makes her condition worse.

Business owners, Simpson added, are helpless.

Speeding motorists, too, contribute significantly to the dust problem, as some drivers disregard the dry and bumpy conditions in an effort to beat a seemingly perennial line of traffic.

But ironically, the motorists have complained about the bumpy road conditions. While expressing their understanding of the need to have better roads, several drivers who spoke with this newspaper said the slow pace of the work being done leaves much to be desired.

They said that a section of the roadway in Salem, Runaway Bay had been dug up for over a year and it was only recently that the contractors had started to do any real work on it.

A similar condition exists near Drax Hall, they said, where a section of the roadway has been dug up since early last year and was only now being worked on.

The Montego Bay to Ocho Rios leg of the north coast highway, originally scheduled for completion in June 2004 at a cost of US$60 million, is now two years behind schedule. The cost has jumped to US$91.5 million.

The Caribbean Development Bank had loan the Jamaican government US$54.1 million for this phase of the highway, with the government providing the balance.

The government had estimated that the entire north coast highway from Negril to Port Antonio would have cost some $10.6 billion but this has been revised upwards to $19 billion.