Nagra Plunkett, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
IN A LAST-ditch effort to remain on their lands, residents of the Roaring River community in Westmoreland are proposing what they describe as workable alternatives to the planned exercise.
Health officials consider the village, which is home to over 1,000 residents, a threat to the water quality of Roaring River, Westmoreland's main water source.
A 2003 report by the Water Resources Authority concluded that since the villagers were responsible for polluting the river, the community should be vacated and residents removed to adjacent sugar lands.
POLLUTANTS
The report also cited burials, animal rearing in close proximity to the river, and inundated pit latrines, built by Government during the typhoid epidemic, as the main sources of pollutants of the river.
The residents who insist that relocation is not an option, believe that any existing threat to the parish's main water source can be corrected without such a measure. They told The Sunday Gleaner that they have since suspended burials and animal rearing in the community.
"The river in question that flows through the village and is cited as a pollution is not Roaring River but Turtle River. It enters Roaring River just above the intake pipe for the water treatment plant," explained American writer, Ed Kritzler, a resident of the area since 1973.
INTAKE PIPE
"Alter Turtle River's course so that it empties into Roaring River below the intake pipe or simply extend the intake pipe to a point above its junction with Roaring River," he suggests.
Mr. Kritzler, also an active member of the Roaring River Citizens' Association (RRCA), is lobbying for the construction of a sewage treatment facility, a service he says his neighbours are willing to pay for.
The planned relocation is
predicated on a 1991 typhoid outbreak during which two
suspected carriers were said to be from the area.
"Me a drink the water straight from the river from 12 years old until now. Me not moving from Roaring River, me buy my place from me a 20 year old selling canes," said 83-year-old ex-serviceman Melvin Abbott.
