REPUBLICA DOMINICANA: Environment Minister says Cemex Dominicana pollutes major river

Santo Domingo.- Environment minister Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal yesterday accused some industries of polluting the Higuamo river by dumping waste and warned Cemex Dominicana of drastic measures if it doesn’t halt that practice.

The official said Environment conducts a plan to recover the Higuamo that includes forcing the industries to install treatment plants, and affirmed that some have already taken measures, but noted that the sugar mills still dump their waste directly into the river. “They dump the hot water in the river. The Higuamo in some periods has a temperature that averages 40 © and a PH of 4.5, at that temperature little life can survive in the Higuamo. That’s incredible.”

Fernandez Mirabal, interviewed by newspaper El Caribe, affirmed that the authorities managed to get the Cesar Iglesias and Brugal factories to install treatment plants at the river, but the cement maker Cemex Dominicana “continues spilling such a high level of particulates that it pollutes the Higuamo.”

He said whenever the authorities ask it to stop contaminating, that company resorts to its “famous damaged filter. We sent a letter telling them that our flexibility could appear to be complicity and we don’t want that, they promised us that they are going to correct it in just a short time because those smaller particulates les enter people’s lungs.”

As to the alleged delays when companies request Environment Ministry permits, the official admitted being ”unwavering,” but blamed the technicians hired by them. “They do like the bad doctors who leave a patient hospitalized a few days more to charge more. They say they have to pay me because ‘that minister is unwavering, he’s a hard bastard.”

No frontal fights

The Environment Minister added that he makes a big effort to recover the Higuamo river, but noted that he’s confronted by sectors powerful “the fight cannot be waged directly, frontally, instead in a sustained manner because once we tighten the grip on an owner  of a factory that pollutes, the press slams the Environment Ministry.”