|
|
|
|
|
News
| Business
| Editorial
| Opinion
| Letters
| Arts
| Review
| Community
| Fun
| Travel |
Volume
13, Number 23 |
|
|
|
||
Also
in this section: PIMPSA's bid
for Rodman cement plant gets PanCanal blessing Anyone who has driven along the Trans-Isthmian Highway for many years is likely to have noticed that pollution coming from cement plants can vary. Before anti-pollution equipment was installed in the cement plant on the Colon side of the Continental Divide, there was a large radius of gray trees and the Ministry of Health wouldn't comment on the prevalence of respiratory diseases among the neighbors. Now the air is still dusty around the plant, but only the trees in its immediate vicinity are gray. The milling of clinker --- cinders that are turned into fine silicon dust --- is a dirty but necessary part of cement production and even the most modern anti-pollution equipment never fully eliminates emissions. The questions are how much dust and how far it spreads. For that reason most industrialized countries prohibit clinker mills within a half mile or so of any residential area and the greater part of such a radius of any other workplace. Parque Industrial Martiimo de Panama SA --- PIMPSA --- proposes a clinker mill adjacent to Panama's coast guard headquarters, the Servicio Maritimo Nacional (SMN) piers at Rodman. That the SMN itself has never had any public comment on the proposal, even though silicon dust ruins mechanical and electronic equipment of the sort on the vessels that call Rodman their home port, is probably an indication that the Torrijos administration supports the PIMPSA clinker plant. However, when it was proposed several months ago the Panama Canal Authority and a number of businesses on the other side of the canal, stretching from Diablo down to the end of the Amador Causeway and to Herman's Bern's new resort on Kobbe Beach, very strenuously objected. A clinker plant without serious pollution controls --- like the plant on the Transistmica used to be --- would in the dry season months with the wind blowing out of the north cover the Bridge of the Americas, Bern's resort and the entire causeway in dust, much to the detriment of tourism. With the wind coming out of the west or northwest, the national park on Ancon Hill, the port of Balboa and a number of Panama Canal Authority facilities would be affected. But pollution controls could be installed that would greatly reduce the long-distance spread of silicon dust. Then only the sailors and equipment of the SMN would be at that sort of serious and immediate risk as if they were working under a gray tree. This past November the ACP changed its position on the PIMPSA project, not really because of any new information but by a corporate reorganization. The authority had a Compatibility Committee to pronounce on proposals that might affect ACP operations, but jurisdiction over the clinker plant proposal was taken away from that committee and given to the ACP board of directors. So why would the ACP directors have better qualifications to deal with this environmental issue? From a certain perspective, because a number of them have family or business ties to the construction industry and all of them are drawn from the ranks of the political parties, and because of those things they can be expected to side with special interests with ties to the construction industry and the political class on environmental questions. The ACP board quickly reversed the Compatibility Committee's decision and gave its blessing to the clinker mill. With the ACP's change of position, the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) is now saying that the situation has changed and the decision on PIMPSA's application will be reconsidered. That's unlikely to mollify the owners of tourist-oriented businesses who fear they will be adversely affected and none of the environmentalist groups who have opposed the Rodman clinker mill have changed their positions, so this appears to be an environmental battle that appeared to be dying out coming back to life. President Torrijos is about to appoint two new magistrates to the Supreme Court, and that becomes significant in this dispute because in the normal course of things a lawsuit against the clinker plant would consume the less that two years left in the president's term and then depending on whom the voters pick in May of 2009 all political arrangements could be off. However, a more highly partisan court might well move away the usual obstacles and expedite a decision in favor of PIMPSA.
Also
in this section: Editorial
| Opinion
| Letters
| Arts
| Review
| Community
| Fun
| Travel Make
the Executive Hotel your headquarters in Panama City --- http://ww.executivehotel-panama.com
|
|||||||||
|
©
2007 by Eric Jackson
email: editor@thepanamanews.com or
Mailing
address: |
|
|
|||||||
