Glaring truths about local EPA

Dec 29, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) holds a position that is not too different from that of the Guyana Police Force (GPF).

The latter stands as our first line of defense in the fight against crime, and brings confidence. Guyana’s EPA is also a national watchdog which, when it is on the job, alert and competent, gives us some assurance that we are in good hands.
For the EPA is responsible for our safety. This safety has many features, starting from protecting our environment (embedded in its official name), to safeguarding our prospects, and concluding with doing the best job it can in many areas. These range from natural resources oversight, the eye-catching big-ticket activities, such as gold and bauxite mining, logging and quarrying, and what is happening in our streets and rivers and ocean.
Our Ocean has been the source of recent controversy, with what looks like suspicious oil slicks triggering concerns as to what is responsible, and why this is taking so long to be discovered at the official (EPA) level. It helps that alert seafarers spotted what is no less than troubling, then took the trouble to voice their findings publicly. What is not helpful is that the local EPA appears unready (at best) and unmoved (at worst), by what could have serious implications for this country.

We have no interest in sounding an alarm that makes this bigger than it is, but at the same time, we cannot be unfazed. Though that may be the attitude of the PPP Government, and its commanded and controlled EPA, we don’t share the same complacency and would be failing in our duty, if we were to remain silent. To begin with, Exxon and its management have not been trustworthy and credible in their dealings with Guyana’s representatives. It is our belief that Exxon has compromised Guyan’s Governments and leaders in both the previous Coalition Government and today’s PPP Government.

In fact, it is our sense that this weakening had started as far back as late last century (1990s). All of this has accrued to our national shame and financial pain. Look at our leaders, and they can hardly speak, and when they do say something, it is usually shaving the truth. Look at our supporting agencies, of which the EPA stands as the brightest poster child, and it is reduced to the shambolic. This is what a Guyanese pointed to in the article we carried that was captioned, “EPA’s response to suspected ‘oil spill’ exposes lack of capacity” (KN December 7). We have spoken out about this often. Indeed, going so far as to take the position that we are neither fooled by nor satisfied with what the EPA offers relative to procedures, or what its spokespeople share regarding preparedness and plans.

This is what the strapline to our above caption confirms: “…If the EPA is taking one week to find the location and determine whether the substance found floating in the water is really crude oil, in the meantime, we could be facing consequences that are colossal…The EPA definitely needs to do better.” Thanks go to Dr. Troy Thomas, Guyanese Scientist and University Lecturer, who further noted that ‘people have a right to be worried.’
The problem is that the Guyanese who worry are dismissed by this country’s oil chief – its Vice President – as not knowing much, and getting in the way. But by any measure, a week is a long time. In a possible oil spill scenario, it is an eternity and this cannot be dismissed. Too much is at stake. Too little is coming from the EPA, and what does come is too late and lacks credibility. Our coastline and other environment could be inundated with the colossal consequences of an oil spill, and the EPA could be just as clueless, helpless, and useless. Our early warning radar, which currently should be the EPA is out of touch, and made this way by dirty politicians who are in bed with Exxon. This is what is killing us financially, could kill us environmentally. The ugliness of it all is that we wouldn’t know, other than by accident. The EPA is there, but it might as well not be.

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