Opposition Leader Andrew Holness said yesterday that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) will be sending cases of persons identified as victims of the Riverton City dump fire to the public defender to pursue compensation for them.

“We also urge every Jamaican who has suffered these health problems to take their cases to the public defender,” Holness told a hurriedly called press briefing at the JLP’s Belmont Road headquarters in Kingston after it became clear that the organic chemical compound, benzene, had been detected in air pollutants from the two-week old fire at the city’s main dump at Riverton City in Western St Andrew.

Holness said that it was obvious that the Government’s main concern at this time was not the “hundreds of Jamaicans suffering from respiratory illnesses” triggered by the two-week-old fire, “but that a political feeding tree is drying up”.

“That is the state of the politics of Jamaica,” Holness said.

The Jamaica Information Service (JIS) reported yesterday afternoon that an Air Quality Report, commissioned by the Ministry of Health, had shown that during the period when the sample was taken (March 13-14), there were high levels of hazardous substances, including benzene, contained in the air pollutants associated with the fire at the dump.

“Prolonged or long-term exposure to benzene has been blamed for causing cancers, such as leukaemia,” the report added.

The JIS reported Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Marion Bullock-DuCasse as saying that the sampling for volatile organic compounds showed that benzene was at its highest level ever recorded by the ministry.

“The high level of benzene is directly attributed to the burning at the Riverton disposal site. We consider this a significant public health issue,” Dr Bullock-DuCasse said.

She added that children, the elderly and persons with chronic respiratory conditions, such as asthma, should be closely supervised.

“If persons experience any sort of respiratory symptoms they should take their prescribed medication or seek medical attention immediately,” she cautioned.

Human exposure to benzene has been associated with a range of acute and long-term adverse health effects and diseases, including cancer and aplastic anaemia.

The Opposition’s spokeswoman on health, Senator Marlene Malahoo Forte, told the press briefing that the party wanted full disclosure of the findings of the air quality report.

“A number of people, especially children, have been reported as turning up at health centres with coughs and drowsiness and dizziness. We indicated our concern, initially, about the level of toxins in the air, and our concern was met with an alarmist response by the Government. But now we know that the exposure is at a toxic level,” she said.

Opposition spokesman on local government Desmond McKenzie said that he understood that the Local Government Minister Noel Arscott is scheduled to meet with the board of the National Solid Waste Management Authority today (Tuesday). However, he warned that the Opposition would not tolerate any political interference in the decision of the board not to renew the contract of the authority’s Executive Director Jennifer Edwards.

“We feel that there should be no political interference with the operations of the board, as it relates to the decision that was taken by the board,” McKenzie said.

He said that the minister should not bow to any political pressure from within the ruling People’s National Party (PNP).

Edwards heads the PNP’s Women’s Movement, while board chairman Steve Ashley is a member of the party’s National Executive Council.

Opposition spokesman on the environment Alexander Williams suggested that it was “disgraceful and shameful” that, after two weeks of the fire, Environment Minister Robert Pickersgill has not issued a statement on the threat to the environment.

“The minister has not even seen fit to make a statement of apology for this natural disaster,” Williams said.

An adult and three schoolchildren make their way home through smoke pollution from the Riverton dump two Fridays ago.