GOVERNMENT senator and president general of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union Kavan Gayle is warning that restraining bauxite mining in St Ann and Trelawny, under the Special Mining Lease (SML) 173 arrangement with Noranda Jamaica Partners II and New Day Aluminium (Jamaica) Limited, could have a devastating effect on the local economy.

Speaking on the January 2023 injunction which was granted by the Supreme Court, restricting Noranda and New Day’s access to mining in SML 173, a decision which was later appealed in March by the companies — jointly known as Discovery Bauxite — Gayle told the Jamaica Observer that the stop order was “a sentence not only on mining but on a huge chunk of the national and community economy. It constitutes a restraining order on mining as well as a restraining order on educational assistance, mortgages, scholarships for thousands of students, career paths, hospitals, building roads, helping the indigent, small businesses, culture and heritage, and agriculture.”

Regardless of pleas from the companies, that they be allowed to continue their operations until the case against them is heard in November, the court made the order barring either outfit from commencing or continuing any mining of lands in SML 173.

Justice Anne-Marie Nembhard ruled in favour of nine residents who brought the constitutional claim, challenging the lawfulness of bauxite mining activities, which they said, among other things, breached their right to life and right to enjoy a healthy and productive environment free from the threat of injury or damage from environmental abuse and degradation of the ecological heritage.

Senator Gayle stressed that Discovery Bauxite and its predecessor companies have not conducted nor ever conducted any mining or quarrying activities inside the Cockpit Country Protected Area as officially and legally delineated by the Government. “This is a baseless charge fabricated by the environmental lobby,” he charged.

He argued also that a further injunction on mining being sought by the claimants from the courts to extend their restriction order to cover SML 165 and 172, along with two other leases available to Discovery Bauxite for mining, is “obviously aimed at locking down all mining activities in the special mining lease areas permitted to Discovery Bauxite, and eventual shutdown of all mining activities in the industry”.

He said this would spell devastation for small businesses, garages, shops, stores, restaurants, local trade, farmers, and vehicle sales, pointing out that the bauxite/alumina industry pumps some US$500,000,000 annually into the economy, provides income and direct and indirect employment for some 5,000 people, and makes up over 50 per cent of Jamaica’s exports annually.

The concession arrangement with the Government, which owns 51 per cent interest in the partnership, allows Noranda Bauxite Limited to mine bauxite in Jamaica until 2030.

In the January judgement granting injunctive relief, Justice Nembhard determined that the risk of irreparable harm to the claimants was “apparent”, in respect of SML 173, and that “this course [an injunction] seems more likely to minimise the risk of an unjust result”.

The companies have contended that the ruling did not consider a number of factors beneficial to the country, such as projected tax collection inclusive of bauxite production levy and royalties for the financial year 2020/23 of approximately US$35 million, and another US$139 million for 2023-2027. They said that the economy would also suffer from the loss of domestically generated income, export earnings from the sector, and inflows from the bauxite levy of some US$4.9 billion for the financial year 2022/23.