WITH the passing of new air quality regulations into law last year, the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) has spent the last several months trying to educate Jamaicans, particularly members of industry, on its requirements and penalties.

“We have been going to the stakeholder groups. The people who will be mainly affected, and those who will be required to monitor – the parish council, the Ministry of Health, NEPA and other regulatory bodies and government agencies,” NEPA’s acting public relations manager, Zadie Neufville, told the Sunday Observer.

“We also are dealing with the stakeholder groups, such as the JPSCo and those who operate power barges and the NSWMA (National Solid Waste Management Authority) because, of course, the management of waste is part of it because you can have combustion and so on.”

Added Neufville: “We are looking (also) at people who will have facilities that will be impacted, such as sugar companies, anybody who has an emission stack (chimneys), cement company – anybody who would pollute the air in any way.”

The regulations were signed into law by Local Government and Environment Minister Dean Peart and gazetted in July last year. The regulations are intended to shore up Jamaica’s management of its air quality, specifying the requirements for air emission sources from industrial sources.

Neufville noted that the agency has sought to engage the public through a variety of mediums, including community visits, workshops and seminars and the circulation of CDs with the relevant information on the regulations.

“Each of the public workshops that we put on cost in excess of $80,000 each. And that is just the community part of it. It does not include paying people (nor the stakeholder workshops),” she noted.

“We look at the needs and incorporate it into the public education budget. We generally use NRCA board funds for these sort of events. And we don’t have a lot of money to spend on it. When the money runs out then we have to go to the board,” she said of the financing.

The acting communications manager noted that NEPA had begun to put air quality monitoring equipment in place.

“At NEPA we are putting in air quality monitoring equipment. We have some on the roof of the agency and at other areas across the island. We are putting them in as funds become available,” Neufville said. “The bauxite companies do the monitoring themselves, and we check the equipment to ensure that it is doing what it is supposed to be doing.”

There is, meanwhile, no question of the importance of the regulations.

Eleanor Jones, consulting principal and managing director of Environmental Solutions Limited (ESL), attested to this.

“(The regulations are) very important. What we have been seeing is a deterioration of the ambient air quality, and it means that we have to control what we put in the air. Air quality has a direct bearing on our health and we are seeing increasing incidents of asthma, bronchitis, etc,” Jones told the Sunday Observer.

Neufville underscored the point.

“It is very important one, for us to be compliant with the agreements we have signed in terms of Kyoto and so on. It is also very important in terms of the health of the nation. We need to know what it is that is being emitted into the atmosphere,” she said.

“You need data to be able to control what goes out there, and that is what we are aiming to do – reduce the amount of harmful emissions. Of course, we are aiming to reduce the levels of emissions as an overall environmental policy.”

Neufville’s sentiment is one that has been echoed by at least one local environmental group.

“I think it’s a good idea that we monitor our air quality. with a stern approach, which certain laws in that regulate the amount of emissions that come from certain equipment,” noted Barrington Nesbeth, head of the environmental lobby group, World African Reunification Association (WARSA), adding his hope that the penalties would prove sufficiently stringent.

“There should be strong penalties and not just a penalty system that is mentioned. That is the only way I see Jamaica will come into line.”

The regulations come in the wake of complaints from communities located near certain industrial facilities, which have reported increased incidents of upper respiratory tract and cardiovascular diseases, following exposure to air contaminants over the years.