Fortis Belize Engages Cayo Communities in Public Meetings on Environmental Concerns

Fortis Belize is hosting a series of public meetings with five communities in the Cayo district that live near to the company’s hydro dam. The meetings are a part of the company’s court-ordered requirements to keep these communities informed of potential environmental changes and hazards. Meetings are being held in Cristo Rey, Calla Creek, Santa Familia, Bullet Tree, and San Ignacio/Santa Elena. Albert Roches, Health, Safety and Environment Manager for Fortis, said that key information shared with community residents was the data from the mercury in fish study and the early warning system.

Albert Roches, HSE, Manager, Fortis Belize: “Yesterday we had our first session for this quarter and we started in Cristo Ray. And at that meeting, we had about 15, between 15 and 20 villagers attend. And at the meeting, we shared with them data on our water quality monitoring, which we conduct every three months as well. And we also shared with them data on our mercury in fish study. Now like I mentioned earlier,these are five communities that are either on the Macal River, the Belize River, or the Mopan River. So we have a third party consultant that does our mercury in fish study for us. And this year they sent, I believe, 312 samples to a lab in Mexico to analyze the samples for mercury. And these are samples from five main fish species that are consumed within these communities. And apart from that, we also shared with them the data or  update them on our early warning system, which is a system that we have a siren system within these communities that would send out an alarm, an audio alarm, warning them of an impending flood due to maybe a dam break or just a major flood that would be occurring.”

Roches said that there were around fifteen people present at the Cristo Rey meeting, in a village that has a population of over a thousand. He went on to say that Fortis is working to develop other ways of effectively getting information out to the villagers. The next meeting is scheduled to be held in Calla Creek Village tonight.