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Establish Laboratory to determine bauxite quality – Councilor Charles Sampson

Aug 06, 2016 News

By Enid Joaquin
RDC Councilor Charles Sampson is advocating the establishment of testing facilities to determine the quality of bauxite that is leaving Guyana, “ We don’t know what quality of bauxite is being moved out of this country. There are different qualities of bauxite so do we know by way of analysis, not by Bosai saying this or that, what quality is shipped?
Based on whatever quality is shipped, that is how Bosai pays the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) royalties”.
“We do not know whether by Rusal or here at Bosai, what quality of bauxite is being shipped out, we don’t know, we are being fooled, and the only way that we could know is by having a laboratory established.”
Sampson said that unless this is done, our country would be robbed of much needed royalties.
Emphasizing that our bauxite resources are not infinite, Sampson urged that people with the requisite knowledge of bauxite be invited whenever meetings are held with the Management of the bauxite industry.
Sampson was at the time highlighting some of his concerns at the RDC’s statutory meeting.
A former employee of the bauxite industry with some 20 years of experience, the councilor is also advocating for a dust collector for one of the kilns.
He said that when the dust collectors were installed for two kilns, he had questioned their efficiency and whether if one of the collectors went down if the other would kick into operation.
Sampson said the answer was no, as the dust collectors are not interlinked.
He added that the company has dust collectors for the calciners but not the dryers, which also emits dust in the atmosphere. He said that it is equally important to have collectors for the latter.
“They got some days when they drying bauxite and you crossing the bridge and your whole face white or brown.
“When they loading the ship, you know how much dust does go into Silvertown and West Watooka?. You pass the bauxite plant in the night and you would see how the place white, not with mist or vapor but with dust.”
Councilor Sampson alluded to some of the health issues caused by the dust pollution, and faced by residents in the mining town. The pollution, he contends, is not faced by people in any other part of the country. Most of those health issues he claimed are respiratory.
Sampson is exhorting Bosai to “kill” the Dryer and ship the bauxite with “high moisture”.
Another councilor Emanuel Barkoi in support of such a move said, that RUSAL does not dry the bauxite from Aroima, but ships it damp. Barkoi is presently employed with the Berbice River Bauxite Company.
Regional Chairman Rennis Morian said that the Ministry of Natural Resources should be engaged as regards the monitoring of the quality of bauxite leaving Guyana, and that the EPA monitor the environmental issues.

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