EDITORIAL - EPD needs strengthening

In Barbados, we have an organisation called the Environmental Protection Department (EPD). The mission statement of EPD suggests that the organisation is concerned with the promotion of sustainable environmental practices.

 

The EPD is concerned on a whole with regulation, controlling and monitoring environmental practices. In fact, that Department is the environmental monitoring and pollution control department of the Government of Barbados, namely the Ministry of the Environment, Water Resources and Drainage.

 

Under the Department’s “Mission Statement” it reads: “The Environmental Protection Department will seek to promote sustainable practices through control, regulation and enforcement. In so doing, the Department will enable future generations to inherit an environment which is healthy, productive and enjoyable”.

 

Further to this, the Department “is responsible for the monitoring and control of conditions likely to affect the quality of land, air and water and the general health and environmental well-being of the inhabitants of Barbados”. It is said that its functions are exercised throughout the entire island.

 

Whilst all this sounds good, in theory, a question still remains in relation to the weight the EPD really carries in Barbados. Whilst Barbadians have access to all this information that lays out quite nicely the roles and responsibilities of the Department, an argument can be made that when it comes to the agency’s enforcement arm, there is no real action seen in Barbados.

 

Rome was not built in a day and Barbadians can appreciate the fact that some environmental issues in this country need to be addressed, on a phased basis. However, the EPD needs to look into cases which see individuals setting up auto body shops in the midst of residential neighbourhoods, without the appropriate facilities in place to capture the fumes that emit from these “open spaces”.

 

A call to the EPD may not be the solution, as things sometimes just go on file or you get the run- around with no one knowing what action can be taken directly.

 

Let us not even touch the troubling issue of indiscriminate burning of refuse in the open in communities across Barbados, because we know for a fact that we would be wasting our time, hoping that any organisation can address this problem, without the necessary legislation being put in place to allow for the enforcement arm to work.

 

There are other pressing environmental issues which need to be looked into as soon as possible, such as thick, black exhaust fumes emanating from vehicles, especially public service vehicles; and noise pollution. While it will take some time for these problems to be rectified, the least officials can do is come out and speak to the matter, or at least attempt to reprimand the offending parties.

 

On a whole, a more serious message must be sent that people cannot do as they like, while affecting the health of others in the process. Barbadians need to know what environmental practices they can engage in within the limits of the law,and which practices they should abstain from, and the EPD can help in this regard. If we are not sure where to start, let us look on the international scene and see how things are done and then give the EPD some additional power, so we can truly address a number of long overdue 

environmental matters in Barbados.