NEPA’s responsibility for the regulations of Bauxite Processing Facilities in Jamaica

July 8, 2011

The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) wishes to inform of its responsibility for regulating the operations of bauxite processing facilities in Jamaica.

Under the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) Act and the policy mandate of NEPA, the Agency has responsibility for:

• Processing applications and making recommendations to the NRCA Board for approval of Environmental Permits (EP) and/or Environmental Licences (EL)
• Monitoring and assessing the operations of plants which have been issued with Environmental Permits or Licences by the NRCA, to ensure compliance with the Permits and/or Licences
• Seeking compliance where breaches of Permits or Licences are identified
• Effecting enforcement action

The operators of the Windalco Kirkvine Works in Manchester presently have an existing EP, but are currently not in full compliance with the conditions. NEPA has been in dialogue with the operators with respect to becoming compliant and a plan is to be agreed for the required actions. The operators have been advised of the Regulators’ requirements for the plan.

An application for an amendment to the existing permit was made by the operators and further to the normal review process by NEPA’s technical officers and the NRCA Board, is now being finalised for issue. NEPA, during its review process, works with various other regulatory agencies such as the Water Resources Authority (WRA), the Environmental Health Unit (EHU)-Ministry of Health and the Jamaica Bauxite Institute (JBI),which have their specific mandates under various environment and health

NEPA continues to collaborate with all players to fulfill its regulatory responsibilities towards ensuring protection of the environment and fostering sustainable development.

About NEPA

The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) is the premier government agency with the mandate for environmental protection, natural resource management, land use and spatial planning in Jamaica. NEPA executes its mandate through the development of environmental and planning policies; monitoring of natural resource assets and the state of the environment; enforcement of environmental and planning regulations; processing of applications for environmental permits and licences; advising on land-use planning and development, public education and information, among other things