- Patrick Campbell/Staff Photographer
A senior citizen from Roaring River, Joslyn Abbot, fills his water bottle for drinking purposes.
Erica James-King, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
A MAJOR ROW is brewing between the Ministry of Water and Housing and residents of the Roaring River community in Westmoreland, over what is the best method of protecting the river from being the source of another typhoid outbreak.
The Ministry has decided to put in motion a relocation plan for the more than 600 residents of the community located at the head of the Roaring and Turtle rivers. But residents who are stoutly resisting the move, have accused the Government of having an ulterior motive for wanting to move them and have boycotted a three-day sanitisation programme developed by the Public Health Department for the community.
Both the relocation and sanitisation projects are part of an "Action Plan" prepared for the area by the Water Resources Authority (WRA), with consultations from other agencies, with a view to safeguarding the quality of that waterway. The Roaring River is the premier source of drinking water for Westmoreland and about 100,000 residents in Westmoreland (or some 90 per cent) depend on that water supply, according to the WRA.
Harry Douglas, State Minister for Water and Housing, told The Sunday Gleaner that despite the protests, his Ministry was pressing full steam ahead with the relocation plans, to ensure that the quality of the Roaring River water is free from contaminants and that the health of the users of the water is not at risk.
OUTBREAK
"Both the squatters and legal occupants of the land will have to go. We are not going to be tolerating people living around the source of the river," insisted Mr. Douglas who noted that a 1991 outbreak of typhoid in Westmoreland was traced to the Roaring River source.
The site earmarked for the new community is 50 acres of land acquired from West Indies Sugar Company, in close proximity to the Roaring River community. Last week, $130,000 was paid over to the Lands Department by the Water Ministry, to finance the boundary survey for the property, he said.
"Sometime next week, the boundaries will be set out," Mr. Douglas told The Sunday Gleaner on Friday. "In addition, we are hoping that in four to six weeks, the survey of the subdivision plans will be in motion. In no later than four months, we should have the infrastructure going in for the new settlement."
In the meantime, evaluators will be going into Roaring River to value the land, so that the landowners will be able to get compensation for their property, prior to the relocation of the residents.
While declining to say how much the relocation will cost the Government, Mr. Douglas said, "it will definitely run into a multi-million dollar figure."
Pointing to another measure to prevent the water of the Roaring River from being compromised, Mr. Douglas made it clear that effective immediately, the Westmoreland Health Department had put a stop order on all burials in the community.
RELOCATION
But while Roaring River residents say they will comply with the stop order for burial, they are hanging tough on the relocation issue. Vowing that they would continue to reject the scheme, Ann Marie Hibbert, president of the Roaring River Citizens Association said: "We are not squatters. The people of this community have been registered landowners for years. So how can they try to push relocation down our throats?"
Charging that in previous years some politicians and business persons have expressed an interest in acquiring the lands on which the Roaring River attraction sits and lands adjoining the property, Ms. Hibbert alleged: "We feel those in authority have plans to privatise our lands and the attraction which is run by the community to developers,. We believe they want to use the land as a big eco-tourism venture. They want some big wigs to get our property."
PROPOSALS
Residents, she said, have come up with a list of proposals to prevent pollution of the river and are seeking a meeting with Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, to outline their concerns and suggestions.
Meanwhile, 75-year-old Joslyn Abbot who has lived in Roaring River for all his life says he is traumatised, just by thoughts of relocation.
When The Sunday Gleaner caught up with him, he was filling water bottles for domestic use from the river.
"My head hurt just to think that they want to remove us from here. I would prefer they put some people to monitor residents (environment wardens) and prosecute anybody who try to pollute di river," said Mr. Abbot. "I personally don't drink the pipe water with the chlorine. I drink only river water, so I want it remain clean. But from my observation I don't see residents doing anything to contaminate di river."
But the Water Resource Authority (WRA) disagrees. "At present, the conditions at the water source and surrounding areas render the Roaring River highly vulnerable to contamination," said the report in the agency's action plan for the community."
