No disaster plan for chemical spills

Christopher Serju, Sunday Gleaner Writer

The sodium cyanide leak at the AusJam gold-mining facility in Kraal, Clarendon, has underscored Jamaica's lack of preparedness to handle chemical spills and accidents involving hazardous material.

More than three months after the leak was discovered, State agencies are still scrambling to resolve this minor disaster emergency, with no timeline on a final resolution. This, in part, is because of the lack of established protocol on the steps to be taken in mitigating the fall-out from such episodes.

Richard Thompson, deputy director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), told The Sunday Gleaner that Jamaica does not yet have a "national disaster plan", which would provide the guidelines for action in similar situations.

"It is really at the draft stage," he admitted, but added that the ODPEM is still working on a plan for disposal of the more than eight tonnes of sodium cyanide in storage at the mining facility. Relocating the potentially very toxic chemical elsewhere in Jamaica is not seen as a viable long-term option.

"You need to have a proper facility so that you don't have the same thing occurring some place else, as occurred at the gold mine. So we are saying that it is best for it to be somewhere else [where] people have a greater understanding and more experience in dealing with things of this nature."

ODPEM has provided the companies with the specifics of the product such as the volume, form, and storage container, which, in addition to its chemical composition, will be critical in determining the packaging format for transportation. While Guyana, given its relative proximity and extensive gold-mining operations, might seem another viable option, talks in that direction are still at the exploratory stage.

Need for specialised equipment

In addition to its lead role in the disposal aspect of the project, ODPEM has made just under $6.7 million available to the National Environment and Planning Agency from the National Disaster Fund, to facilitate clean-up operations at the mining site.

Thompson admitted that, in addition to the need for a national disaster plan, the leak had also brought into sharp focus the need for specialised equipment including clothing, and training in its use. He admitted that local chemical crews were restricted mainly to private-sector entities such as bauxite and petroleum companies, with Petrojam among the few State-run agencies with the requisite expertise, human resources and equipment to cope with a massive chemical or hazardous-waste spill.

That notwithstanding, the agency has contingency plans to deal with the various scenarios, but there is a great need for much more to be done, Thompson said.