The EPA seems unable,incapable of ending noise nuisance

RESORTING to the Editorial section of your newspaper is my last resort after one year of complaints to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Guyana Human Rights Association and the relevant government ministries.I live next to a wood-processing plant on the eastern bank of the Demerara River. The noise and dust that emanate from this facility is unbearable; and to date the EPA is unable and incapable of bringing an end to the problem of noise nuisance.
The EPA visited the location on several occasions, but was only able to record the violation the very first time they visited. Mysteriously, on every other occasion, the noise would be lowered about 20 to 30 minutes before the EPA people show up. The EPA people would make their notes, record whatever noise is available and then they would leave. On a couple of visits, they stayed at the location for several hours, but were still unable to capture the high level of noise I am exposed to on a regular basis. On one of these occasions, the owner of the plant switched the machines off, and when the EPA people went over to investigate why the prolonged silence, the owner said that the machine had broken down.
On another occasion, the owner claimed that he did not have any high-density wood, such as Greenheart or Purpleheart. He fed softer wood into his moulder, but that did not produce a very high level of noise. It has reached a point where I am beginning to sound like the shepherd who would cry wolf, when in fact there has been no wolf. The EPA has given me all assurances that there is no way the owner of the wood-processing plant could figure out when they would visit, and my story of the noise going down or being turned off about 20 – 30 minutes before they arrive does not seem to have merit.
I also do not understand the system that the EPA uses to determine what is loud and what is not. I purchased a small sound- recording device and when my device reads, let us say, sound at 75 dba, the recorder that EPA uses would show a level of app. 69 dba. Their explanation is that their machines have a one-second delay and mine records noise in real time. In other words, if a wood drops to the ground, my reading would shoot up.
Mr. Editor, my eardrum does not have any mechanism to delay the flow of soundwaves to it or to average the sound and send an average and not the actual loud noise to my eardrum. It seems as if the EPA is simply bending the rules to allow the violation of one of my fundamental human rights – the right to live in peace. I placed my recording device at a particular location and managed to get readings that are very high when the EPA officers are not around. I placed the same device at the same location when the EPA officers are at the location and I got very low readings, but I was still unable to convince them that the noise I am exposed to when they are not around is much higher.
The EPA is helpless and it appears that there are some rogue employees who would tip off people when visits are about to be made to monitor noise breaches. Of course, the EPA would dispute this, but as a Guyanese I am aware of many cases when people in the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Revenue Authority who would tip friends and relatives off when these institutions are about to swoop on various forms of law-breakers. What makes the EPA any different?
The staff at the EPA are always unavailable due to the frequent seminars and training they attend and according to a reliable source, the EPA has very limited powers within which they are expected to function. It is like a namesake organisation. It is expected that the new government would soon enact appropriate legislations that would give the EPA more authority in the execution of their duties. I am also expecting the new government to review the people who have been appointed to manage the EPA, who were not selected on the basis of merit, but were political appointees.

Sunny

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