The Editor, Sir:

The Jamaica Environmental Advocacy Network (JEAN) is concerned to learn that the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) is intending to institute a mandatory 90-day turnaround time by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) for development approvals. According to press reports, if a decision is not given by the regulatory agencies within the 90-day time-frame, a developer will be entitled to proceed with his project.

While JEAN understands the GoJ's desire to avoid needless bureaucracy, to institute a process where silence from NEPA means consent is to open the entire development process to anarchy. Currently, NEPA is utterly ineffective as a regulatory agency - it often delays those matters of minor environmental impact and fast-tracks those with the potential for major impacts. It regards a letter as enforcement action and rarely applies sanctions for breaches by developers.

To give one example, according to documents obtained using the Access to Information Act, the permit granted by NEPA to Hoteles Pinero Jamaica Ltd. (HOJAPI) to build and operate the sewage treatment plant (STP) for the Gran Bahía Princípe Hotel requires that: (a) the STP be built in accordance with submitted designs; and (b) NEPA and the Ministry of Health be advised at inception of construction, at 50 per cent, at 90 per cent, on completion and on commissioning. NEPA also granted a license to discharge sewage effluent, which required compliance with standards.

No sewage plant built

What in fact happened? The sewage plant was not built according to the specifications. We are unaware whether or not the Ministry of Health has ever issued an approval letter for the 'as built' plant; formal notification to the Government agencies was only done at 90 per cent construction, and following tests in August 2007, the sewage effluent did not meet standards.

None of the three government agencies that could apply sanctions to the hotel - NEPA, the Ministry of Health and/or the Water Resources Authority - has done so.

We urge the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health and the Environment to meet with the environmental non-government agencies as a matter of urgency before decisions are taken on the environmental regulatory system.

I am, etc.,

DIANA MCCAULAY

c/o 11 Waterloo Road, Kingston 10