The Institute of Lawyers for the Protection of the Environment (Insaproma) filed an application with the Office of the Attorney for the Defense of the Environment in which it requests the conclusion of the investigations into the complaint of violation of Law 64-00 involving the operations of the two power generation barges on the Ozama River.
“We are waiting for these investigations to be streamlined and the corresponding reports to be submitted to the entire Dominican society that, obviously, will confirm what is very visible and evident: the high polluting impact of these plants” owned by Seaboard Transcontinental.
“We understand that the country needs sources of electricity generation. We are not saying that the plants are good or bad, it is that the location does not proceed neither technically nor legally nor environmentally. The problem is that they are in the Ozama River polluting and causing damage to people’s health. And to a greater extent one of them, which is highly polluted because its boilers are cooled with water from the Ozama, which distorts the temperature of the water and obviously affects the entire coastal-marine system. But in addition to those chimneys, there is no way, no matter how minimal, that this pollution does not go directly to the houses, homes, businesses, hotels, tourists in the Colonial Zone and the surrounding neighborhoods, affecting the health of the people,” said Euren Cuevas, executive director of Insaproma.
Through the filed action, they require the specialized attorney general for the protection of the environment and Natural Resources, Francisco Contreras, to complete the investigative process as soon as possible, since it is an obligation of the national authorities to resolve this issue that they defined as an environmental aberration and how much pollution it generates in the area.
He recalled that in 2017 the then Minister of the Environment, Francisco Domínguez Brito, denied the renewal of Seaboard’s license and granted a deadline to remove the only barge it had, the Estrella de Mar II.
He specified that this plant was installed on the Ozama River when Hurricane George struck in 1998, as a result of the electricity crisis in the country, provisionally and prior to the existence of Law 64-00 on the Environment, for which In his opinion, if that law had existed, it is impossible that the plant would have been installed because it is not environmentally sustainable.
