The City Council has halted the construction of a Nalco Champion Guyana chemical warehouse at the John Fernandes Ltd (JFL) Inland Terminal, at Industrial Site, Ruimveldt Georgetown, saying no permission had been granted.
The municipality yesterday announced that the council has issued a cease order, while also noting that it received complaints from residents about the construction.
Councillor Ekita Edwards, Chairperson of the City Works Committee, told the media at press conference that at the last statutory meeting councillors made a decision to issue the cease order.
“We do believe that the petrochemical bond should not be constructed within that area; it’s also unauthorised work and last Monday, on the 22nd of July, the council would have moved a motion that the proprietor be issued a stop order—the proprietor being John Fernandes–ceasing all works regarding the construction of that petrochemical bond,” Edwards said.
According to Chief City Engineer (ag) Kenson Boston, the cease order was served to the company last Friday. However, after an officer from the company received the notice and city officers departed from the site, Boston said they learnt works continued as per normal.
“That cease order was delivered by the building inspectorate on Friday where they have signed [and] collected that document. Apparently we received some report thereafter when the building inspector left that some of the works were still being done,” Boston said.
Additionally, Town Clerk (ag) Sharon Harry-Munroe said that they launched an investigation and are working with the Central Housing and Planning Authority and the EPA to determine if any of the agencies has granted permission to JFL to engage in construction.
She also stated that they are also currently enquiring whether a permit was given to the company to change the use of the land from agricultural uses to industrial use.
JFL, in a statement issued by Company Secretary Zach Gonsalves, said that it has complied with the order issued by city council.
“Due to the recent concerns raised by residents of Ruimveldt of the storage of chemical materials at this facility, the City Council issued an order for work on the erection of the warehouse to house these chemicals to stop. JFL complied with this order,” he said in the statement.
The statement further highlighted that the company in October 2014, was granted permission to reconfigure the property to be used as a container terminal, inclusive of storage of lumber and pipes.
Gonsalves, in the statement explained further that in order to for his company to conduct the business of a container terminal and storage facilities warehouses needs to be made available.
As a result they applied to the City Engineer’s Office in April 2018 for permission to erect a warehouse. It was not stated by the company if permission was granted.
Representatives of residents from Houston Gardens, Roxanne Burnham Gardens, Shirley Field Ridley Square, Rasville and D’Aguiar Park had raised objections to the proposed chemical plant being constructed at the JFL Inland Terminal as they said it may affect the welfare of those communities.
According to a notice that was published earlier this month by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Nalco Champion Guyana submitted an application for an Environmental Authorisation for the operation of a chemical warehousing facility at the John Fernandes Ltd. Inland Terminal and the transportation of chemicals from the Inland Terminal to John Fernandes’ Water Street port for transfer to the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels offshore Guyana.
It explained that the facility at the Inland Terminal site is to be engaged in the filtration, storage and warehousing of oilfield chemicals to supply the FPSO vessels that will be offshore of Guyana. The proposed operation estimates that 1,493,000 kg of specialty and commodity chemicals will be imported and stored on-site and will occupy 5,000 square metres, with the intention of extending to 20,000 square metres as oil production increases. The notice added that the proposed development of the operation will also involve the construction of office spaces, installation of a laboratory, storage of mechanical equipment and parts and transportation of chemicals, among other activities.
During a meeting with several residents, Nalco Champion representatives announced that they were going to halt all plans for the operations of the chemical warehouse. Their decision to halt plans was made after a visit from the Environmental Protection Agency.
