SOME residents of bauxite mining communities and other stakeholders have joined the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) in reiterating its call for the gazetting of the Cockpit Country-designated protected areas, which Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared over a year ago. They also lobbied for urgent attention to be given to the plight of residents affected by mining.

The Opposition is urging the related regulatory agencies to effectively discharge their mandates to ensure that mining licences are not granted without the required Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs).

“We are calling on the Government to stop that kind of irregularity,” Opposition spokesperson on the environment, Senator Sophia Fraser-Binns insisted yesterday at a press conference, following a meeting with representatives of Cockpit Country stakeholder groups and other persons impacted by the effects of mining.

Jerome Bennett, a senior citizen of Gibraltar in St Ann, said the $12,000 per month that is now being offered as compensation for the residents’ troubles is not enough to compensate for the severe impact bauxite mining is having on his grandchildren.

“When I look at really what is going on, it (the money) have no use for what the water [which is affected by red dirt] is doing to us,” he stated.

“Where they are taking from (mining) right now is just next door where I live; I have two grandkids there and sinusitis and asthma are killing them. Many time when I go to my drum to take up a pail of water and look in, you see the red mining dirt settled, and because of that I have to be going to Brown’s Town to buy water for the kids,” the elderly resident said.

In fact, Bennett believes the severe rash outbreak that his grandchildren experienced are as a direct result of mining activities next to his home.

“Months ago, the water infect the kids, bumps came up on them, bump up the whole a them skin, come out in sores, and I know that is the water. I am just asking the prime minister to just done with the mining in our communities,” he said.

Chairman of the Gibraltar All-Age School, Bishop Robert Clarke said students at the institution have been similarly afflicted, and that so far two teachers have resigned due to the health hazard they face on a daily basis at the school.

“Teachers have to be taking leave from school because of the dust nuisance…it (mining) is so close to the school that the children are having a problem when school is in session; the children are not able to concentrate,” he said. There are just over 200 students enrolled at the school.

Senator Fraser-Binns said the Government should undertake a cost benefit analysis immediately to assess the impact of bauxite mining on people’s lives.

“We all know that mining contributes economically in terms of foreign exchange, there is no doubt about that, but what we do not know is the economic impact on people’s lives.Farmers have been displaced, families have been displaced, lands whichonce used to be farmlands, having now being mined out, are now craters and no farming can take place, so what we are doing is creating poorer communities,” she told reporters.

The Opposition senator stressed that no mining company should be granted a licence before the completion of an EIA. “One community member shared with me the fact that having put her clothes in the water, they change colour because of the caustic content of the water. These are some of the things that we must deal with because the time has come for us to take a look at how bauxite mining affects the people in these communities.”

She further reiterated that a special piece of legislation should be drafted to deal with the issue of titling in relation to bauxite mining lands, as the committee which has been established in the ministry to address this is not sufficient.

“For too long persons who are living in bauxite communities have gone without their titles; many persons are now senior citizens and after so many decades still have not received a title to their property,” she argued.

Up to last month heads of several state agencies advised Cabinet that no bauxite mining was taking place in the Cockpit Country (designated) protected area.

The Ministry of Transport and Mining said: “The Jamaica Bauxite Institute, Jamaica Bauxite Mining Limited, and the Mines and Geology Division advise, to the best of our knowledge, that Noranda Bauxite partners II (Noranda) is currently not involved in any mining activities in the area to be protected as the Cockpit Country. The company’s bauxite mining activities are confined to two areas (SML 172 and SML 165), which are not part of the area to be protected as the Cockpit Country.”

Yesterday, Director of research at the Windsor Research Centre Susan Koenig said there is need for clarity about the Cockpit area designation. She added that there remains confusion surrounding the boundaries declared by Prime Minister Andrew Holness over a year ago, and stressed that there is a Cockpit Country landscape that goes beyond that designation.

“We need to make sure that Cockpit Country ‘landscape’ is protected. If we can get the protected area gazetted and defined, then that means we can protect that, as the prime minister said, for no mining. But we also need to make sure we have a buffer zone to protect the larger Cockpit Country area,” she stressed.

The centre promotes research in the natural sciences for the conservation of Cockpit Country, a densely forested area in Trelawny and St Elizabeth, which is rich in history, water resources, and unique flora and fauna.