D.O.E. Placed a Stop Order on Road Works in Riversdale
The Department of Environment says that a stop order has been placed on the construction of a road in Riversdale. As we’ve been reporting this week, residents in that southern community are not happy that the road was pushed through a creek that serves as breeding grounds for a number of species of fish and habitat to other animals. The developer has removed a portion of the road in the creek, but villagers say that a lot more needs to be cleared. The road works have caused the creek to stop flowing and villagers fear that it will affect their livelihoods. Well, the Department of Environment says that no more works should continue on the site because they visited the area over the weekend and issued a verbal stop order. The department is now preparing to issue a written document, but they have been working to identify the developer before further action is taken. We spoke with Deputy Chief Environmental Officer Edgar Ek who shares the status of the investigation into the matter.
On the Phone: Edgar Ek, Deputy Chief Environmental Officer
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the owner of the development but we did speak to some people interest there, among which was the proposed contractor, for which we issued a verbal stop order for them to stop the development and contact the department for a way forward.”
Andrea Polanco
“Okay, so when you stop the development, you are talking about the road itself – for them to stop pushing through that road?”
On the Phone: Edgar Ek
“Yes, the road. They cannot do anything else based on what we have done. We have issued the stop order, so right now what we are doing is to find out – because we aren’t sure who exactly is the owner – so we are doing due diligence to find out who is the owner. Based on the assessment that we did also, we are determining the way forward on how we are going to address the issue, whether we will legalize the development or take legal action or some other action that needs to be taken. So, we are evaluating those options to see which options are the ones we are going to take.”
Andrea Polanco
“Have you guys gone out to check how far that road construction has gone?”
On the Phone: Edgar Ek
“We made the evaluation on what is there right now, so that is what we have stopped for them to continue doing any future activity in that particular area and until we find a way forward we will see whether a complete a plan for development would be approved for environmental clearance. But until we know the scope, etc…and everything related to the development we will be able to determine what will be the procedure that we are going to follow in terms of granting environmental clearance but in terms of this issue that doesn’t have clearance, then there are at least two approaches that can be taken.”
