Cedros residents protest new smelter plant

RESIDENTS of Chatham near Cedros, are up in arms against Government’s construction of an aluminium smelter plant in their district. Over 500 residents gathered at the Chatham Community Centre Friday evening to voice concerns over a proposed smelta plant occupying 2,000 acres of agricultural land in the small fishing village in the south-east peninsula district. The residents said that over 1,000 residents have been given verbal notice that they would be displaced. Either monetary compensation or alternative housing settlement would be offered to them.

The residents have gotten together and formed themselves into an action group — Chatham/Capde Ville Combined Enviro-nmental Protection Group (CVCEPG). The residents delivered their first salvo last week Thursday and Friday, when they refused to attend two meetings called in the district by the National Energy Corporation and ALCOA, a US-based multi-national corporation. A notice distributed to the residents from ALCOA, invited the residents on January 13 and January 14, to discuss surveys at the Chatham Community Centre, “being conducted in the Cap-de-ville and Chatham areas.” It is part of an environmental impact assessment process for the proposed development, the notice stated.

But the residents said Friday evening that having refused to participate in the meeting, persons accompanied by security guards with guns, visited their homes. “They came with guns and ask us questions of how much lands we have,” CVCEPG’s interim chairwoman Yvonne Ashby said. The proposed plant will produce 300,000 mega tonnes of aluminium. The plant is part of Government’s construction in Cape-de-Ville/Chatham of an industrial estate. Soil testing is currently being done in Chatham for construction of the aluminium plant. ALCOA’s circular to the residents stated that the company would answer questions on how the plant’s construction fits into the overall environmental impact assessment process.

The CVCEPG expressed fears that their means of livelihood — fishing and agriculture — would be threatened. “We fear what (would) become of our food crops and fishing. We in Chatham live on ground provisions. What about the water courses. We plant to live and we fish,” interim secretary of the group, Patrice Valentine, said. Given the toxic emittance in the air from a smelter plant, several residents at the meeting expressed concerns about wildlife in the forested Chatham areas. “This is our life here in the country. One thousand will get jobs, but thousands would be displaced and thousands more lives would be ruined,” villager Ricky Undheim said. The residents will hold another meeting on February 10 at the Cap-de-Ville Community Centre.