The Pomeroon coconut factory fined $1 million by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last month for dumping husks and shells in the surrounding waterways has closed operations indefinitely and is blaming the EPA for not giving it enough time to get its operations in compliance with rules.
“It is closed. We didn’t have an alternative. We didn’t get no time to prepare to do anything. Where will we dispose of the waste? They know it was there for so many years and they never came to work with us? So it is closed. We don’t know when we will open back,” Alfro Alphonso, of Fat Boy Coconut Ventures told Stabroek News yesterday.
“That will take a long time. We are trying to source things from overseas. That don’t happen so quick, you know. So we close,” he added.
