The Chinese company Bosai is the latest in a series of expatriate companies which, over the decades, have been involved in bauxite production at Linden; and the people of Linden understand only too well that the dust emission from the bauxite plant is inextricably linked to the well-being of the community and the economic fortunes of the country as a whole.
What Bosai has done is to set much higher bauxite production targets than its predecessors and more production means higher levels of dust emission into the atmosphere above the mining community; and the increased levels of dust emission have triggered a robust and entirely understandable response from the people of Linden. It has been an incremental response which has intensified in proportion to what has become an increasingly worrisome problem. The volume of dust emission has resulted in larger areas of the community being affected and, the protesting Lindeners say, they have no clear idea as to when the promised abatement to the problem will materialize.
Some months ago a Bosai official told this newspaper that the company plans to create a dust shield which will be in place next year and which will reduce the dust levels significantly. What the protesting Lindeners appear to be demanding is that both the Government of Guyana and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assume a robust posture – which neither has done up to this time – that sends a clear signal to Bosai that all of the interested local parties are singing from the same song sheet – so to speak – as far as addressing the problem is concerned.
But there is more to the problem than simply reducing the level of dust emission. As Chair-man of the Interim Management Committee of the Linden Town Council Orrin Gordon told Stabroek Business recently no one appears to have any clear idea – based on serious investigative studies – as to the health implications of years of constant dust emission for the people of Linden, a circumstance that leaves the community in a condition of worrying uncertainty.
And while the people of Linden are hardly denying that increased bauxite production is good for employment they appear to have taken the position that whatever the benefits of increased bauxite production these cannot be realized at the expense of the health of the host community.
There is clearly much merit to the argument that the health-related implications of the dust emission must be factored into the costs associated with Bosai’s operations. For example, there is nothing wrong with the argument being made by Mr. Gordon that since Linden and its environs will have to put up with dust emission for the foreseeable future, resources should be set aside for medical and research facilities that undertake some measure of investigation into the impact of the dust emission on the respiratory and other health considerations in the community and seek to treat such ailments when they occur; and there is nothing wrong with requiring the Government of Guyana and Bosai to meet the cost of establishing and running such a facility.
This, after all, is an era in which companies speak glibly about corporate social responsibility and when public health and environmental considerations ought to count as much to governments as do profits accruing from economic activity.
