(Jamaica Observer) Herman Webb is an angry man.The 65-year-old says that Noranda Bauxite Company has been giving him, his neighbours and hundreds of residents in districts neighbouring the community of Stepney in South East St Ann a raw deal.
“If somebody don’t come to we rescue it’s going to be a bloody revolution around here. I have been farming this land for 42 years and they want to give me little or nothing,” Webb fumed in an interview with the Sunday Observer.
President of the Nine Miles United Districts Association Gerald Lawrence (right) and an unidentified resident view a mined-out crater at Down Lodge in South East St Ann. (Photos: Karyl Walker)
A section of a mined-out crater in Stepney.
Webb’s outrage, and that of his neighbours, has its genesis in Noranda’s mining operations in the districts which, the residents claim, have been having a negative effect on their lives.
“The dust is terrible,” said Webb. “It affects everybody, but the company don’t pay anybody who is more than 300 feet from the mining site. It is unfair, because the breeze blow the dust for miles.”
Webb’s frustration was shared by Gerald Lawrence, president of the Nine Miles United Districts Citizens’ Association.
“We want the whole Jamaica to know what we are going through. Our lives have become hell,” said Lawrence.
The association represents the districts of Prickly Pole, Glasgow Lodge, Eight Miles, Nine Miles, Stepney, Hessen Castle, Murray Mount and Grants Mountain.
Most of the residents in the bauxite-rich section of the parish are farmers who live on land owned by Noranda.
In recent times, the company served notice that the residents need to clear their crops from designated plots and has been paying compensation to the displaced farmers.
But this has been a bone of contention for the residents who claim that their crops are being grossly undervalued.
“They want to give me $700,000 for my six-and-a-half acres worth of crops. I had a big farm with 3,000 coffee plants valued at $2 million, and 2,000 roots of banana. They valued the coffee at $300,000. That can’t be fair after 42 years,” Webb said.
He said he has written to the minister of mining and the Jamaica Bauxite Institute about his plight but has so far not received a reply.
The residents produced documents bearing the letterhead of Noranda which gave them six months to clear the land. However, they allege that the company has not honoured the agreement and has been bulldozing crops before the six-month grace period expires.
Percival Cross and Diedre Lewis, whose plots have already been mined, said bulldozers came and destroyed their crops without notice.
The notice letter which Lewis showed the Sunday Observer stated that she had until October 30 to clear the land. However, she showed the newspaper the land that has already been mined.
Cross said his farm was cleared after only three months.
“One day we just wake up and them start clear the land — crop and all. Them say them give me six months, but the tractor come after only three. Them deal with me cold, and now me crop gone and me no have no way to feed my children. What we going do?” he said.
When the Sunday Observer contacted Kent Skyers, public relations officer at Noranda, he denied the residents’ claims, saying that clearing land before the notice period expires was not in line with the company’s policy.
“Our operations are not like that. We would not be giving notice and then go and push off crops before the time. We don’t normally take off crops,” Skyers said.
His response, however, ran counter to what was shown to this reporter. Other questions in relation to the residents’ claims, sent to Skyers via e-mail on Friday, were not responded to up to press time last night.
In sections of Eleven Miles, Down Lodge and Ballintoy large craters, some more than 100 feet deep, littered the landscape.
Under the Mining Act, bauxite companies must adhere to land reclamation regulations set out by the Jamaica Bauxite Institute. Deep craters must be refilled and the miners must restore the land by placing at least six inches of top soil in mined-out areas.
But the residents of Dry Harbour Mountains complained that the company has not been strictly adhering to the land reclamation requirement.
At Down Lodge a huge crater remained unfilled and although sections of the land have been replanted with grass and cassava, other sections are bare and limestone is visible.
This reporter took at least 100 steps before reaching the base of the crater.
“This can’t be right. They have ravaged the land, gone with all the precious nutrients and have left some dust on top of stone,” Lawrence said, shaking his head slowly.
While some land had been sold to big money interests decades ago, other residents sold their land to the bauxite miners only recently.
Alvin Hall of Stepney is one such former land owner.
Hall lives in a modest dwelling perched on a mound bordered by a deep crater on one side and another plot of land which is being mined on the other side.
Hall said he sold his land and will be relocated by the company to another section of the island that has already been mined.
The Sunday Observer saw tractors and other heavy equipment being used to load tonnes of red dirt in the backs of tipper trucks as Hall’s two sons romped on the little space that was left of their once-sprawling yard.
The mining was taking place almost 30 feet from his house.
Hall said he had signed a deal with Noranda in which the company promised not to disturb a family plot where the remains of his ancestors rested.
Less than 30 feet to the back of his house is a gaping crater stretching for more than 200 metres.
The residents have also complained that the miners have been filling sinkholes in the area, placing them at risk of flooding during heavy rains.
Sinkholes, which are found in many rural communities, are nature’s way of providing drainage for rainwater to flow into rivers and eventually the sea.
Janet Smith, a respected resident of Sterling district, was critical of bauxite mining, claiming that it brought more problems than good to communities.
“It has destroyed the topography of many farming communities in the Dry Harbour Mountains. We do not need bauxite mining,” she said. “They leave huge craters everywhere they mine and they don’t seem to care that people’s lives are being turned upside down. The land cannot be farmed after it is mined out. The dust and noise are hazards. This is wrong.”
