EPA monitoring air quality around rice mills

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will continue to monitor air quality around rice mills.
According to the EPA, it has recently placed more emphasis on air quality monitoring around rice mills in the agricultural communities across the country.
These communities are often affected by dust pollution which stems from operations being conducted at the rice mills such as the drying of paddy, burning of paddy husk, dumping of paddy ash, spontaneous combustion of paddy husk, and transport of rice by-products.
When contacted on Friday, Head of the EPA Khemraj Parsram said they are addressing complaints received from residents in areas in Mahaica.
“We are addressing complaints regarding two rice mills in Mahaica…Cane Grove and Strangroen …complaints of dust from the burning of paddy husk and dust from the mill,” he said.
He stated that since receiving complaints, they have met farmers in the area who have been very communicative.
“So, we met with the millers and the respective communities and got assurances from the millers to put measures in place to address,” he stated.
“As part of our investigation, we are monitoring the emissions to determine what measures we may have to stipulate to address,” Parsram added.
To reduce the effects of the operations conducted by some of the rice mills, the EPA has since suggested several measures that can be taken such as the use wet suppression techniques, heavy-duty filters, appropriation of adequate buffer zones between the mill and residential areas, and the use of covers for trucks.
Meanwhile, the EPA head elaborated a bit more into the initiative that focuses on rice mills.
“This is a campaign we also started to address these long-standing issues related to rice mills close and within communities and upwind of residents,” he explained.
“Since we boosted our capacity with state-of-the-art monitoring equipment including remote real-time technology,” he added.
The agency back 2021 received the state-of-the-art air quality sensors which can conduct real-time monitoring as a donation from IQ Air, which is a Swiss air quality technology company that specialises in the protection against airborne pollutants and developing air quality monitors and air cleaning products.
Sensors have since been set up by the EPA at areas in Georgetown, Linden, New Amsterdam, and Hampton Court.