EMA to rule on THA request for clearance on Shirvan/Store Bay project

BY NEXT WEEK, the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) is expected to make a decision on an application by the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) for a certificate of environmental clearance to complete roadworks for Shirvan/Store Bay Local Connector Road at Friendship Estate, Tobago.

The EMA had complained of the THA’s failure to get the requisite approvals to start the construction of the road.

On Wednesday, Justice Frank Seepersad was told by the THA’s lead attorney, Larry Lalla, SC, that the THA had applied for the CEC and on July 17, provided the EMA with the information it requested. He said the project was 90 per cent complete but there was still the issue of the injunction ordered by the court on May 26 which stopped all work from continuing on the project until a CEC application was lodged and approved.

The authority’s lead attorney, Ian Benjamin, SC, confirmed the application was filed and the necessary site visit but the EMA required a few more days to process it. He said while he could not say if the application would be granted, Benjamin said the process was moving quicker than the statutory 30-day period provided for under the EM Act for a decision on a CEC.

Seepersad said he was pleased there was some movement on the application and adjourned the matter to October 11, to determine the next step.

“Let's take it chronologically as the steps are engaged.”

On June 23, Seepersad dismissed the THA’s objection to the High Court proceeding with the EMA’s complaint. It was the THA’s position that the better forum to hear the EMA’s complaint would be the Environmental Commission and not the High Court.

On Wednesday, Seepersad was told the THA had since filed its defence and a counter-claim. The EMA was given until the end of September to respond to both.

The construction of the Shirvan/ Store Bay Local Road Connector is said to comprise a 2.5-kilometre single-carriageway, two roundabouts and a drainage system. Work on the road began on May 8.

Also appearing with Benjamin for the EMA are attorneys Sadna Lutchman, Tekiya Jorsling and Maurice Wishart.

Appearing with Lalla for the THA are attorneys Christlyn Moore and Adanna Joseph-Wallace.

Last month, there was a standoff between the THA’s Division of Infrastructure, Quarries and Development Secretary, the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA, and the utility’s line minister, Marvin Gonzales, about a pipe-laying project at the worksite.

The minister and WASA called on Commissioner of Police Erla Harewood-Christopher to investigate orders, allegedly by the police, to the authority’s contractor to remove all its equipment, tools and tents off the road.

The alleged instruction cited the injunction granted to the EMA.

The minister and WASA said checks with the assistant commissioner of police in Tobago revealed no instruction had come from his office.

Gonzales said the THA had stopped the 7.6 kilometre pipeline project which runs from Signal Hill to Store Bay Local Road. WASA accused the THA of stopping the pipe-laying project without providing a proper basis for doing so.

The division claimed it wrote to WASA informing the authority it could not provide oversight for the pipe-laying project because of the injunction.

Both WASA and the minister insisted that the authority has received all statutory approval for its work.