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EPA accused of ignoring asthma patient’s pleas over sawdust pollution
(Kaieteur News) – An Atlantic Gardens, East Coast Demerara (ECD) resident says the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to act on repeated complaints about dust and noise pollution from a neighbouring furniture-making operation, even as her chronic asthma has landed her in hospital multiple times a week since May.
Some of the medication that Mrs Sharma takes as a result of her respiratory ailment.
Romila Sharma told Kaieteur News that a home-based furniture business next door has been sending large volumes of sawdust drifting into her yard, a trigger she says has put her in and out of hospital for the past two months.
“I am a chronic asthma patient, and since May, I have been in and out of the hospital receiving treatment due to severe respiratory distress caused by a massive volume of sawdust continuously blowing into my yard from my neighbour’s property,” Sharma said.
Sharma said she first reported the matter to an EPA officer on June 15, and was told that asthma-related cases are treated seriously. She has since submitted medical test results, scan reports and hospital receipts to the agency documenting her exposure and treatment. Despite this, she said, no EPA representative has visited her home or the neighbouring property to assess the situation.
After several unanswered follow-up calls to the agency, Sharma said she escalated her complaint directly to EPA Executive Director Kemraj Parsram — a message she said went unanswered.
The frustrated woman noted that Atlantic Gardens is a residential community where this type of manufacturing operation is not permitted.
“These agencies were created to deal with dust and noise pollution affecting residents, and I basically have to beg for them to take my complaint seriously,” she said. “It’s like I have to beg to survive. EPA’s laziness can cause people their lives, because what if someone can’t afford to go to the hospital as much as I have had to go for the past two months?”
While the EPA has yet to respond, the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) recently visited the property and issued the furniture maker a seven-day ultimatum to shut down the operation.
Sharma welcomed the NDC’s intervention but said it should not have taken this long, or required a report to the media, to get any authority to act. She said she worries about other residents who may be suffering in silence without the means or platform to press their case.
“There are people in worse situations than mine — people who cannot afford to make these hospital visits. What happens to those people?” she asked. “What are the cases that the EPA takes seriously, if you hear someone cannot breathe, and they are struggling, and they still cannot come after so long?”
Kaieteur News has reached out to the EPA for comment on the specific complaint and on its general protocol for responding to health-related pollution reports, but is yet to receive a response.
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