JAMAICA narrowly avoided a far wider economic setback from Hurricane Melissa as the Category 5 system spared the mining sector major damage, according to Government Minister Floyd Green who said that any such impact would have quickly rippled through mining-dependent towns, creating a significant loss in employment.
Green, the minister of agriculture, fisheries and mining, noted that the country’s bauxite and mining operators moved early to reduce risk as forecasts for Hurricane Melissa shifted repeatedly, placing major industrial sites in Clarendon, Kingston, and St Catherine under potential threat. He said the uncertainty surrounding the storm’s path forced companies to activate emergency protocols to protect both infrastructure and the environment, as Melissa meandered over the Caribbean Sea for days before eventually slamming into Jamaica’s south-western coast on October 28.
“With any weather event of that nature, clearly our bauxite and mining sector will take steps to kind of moderate production and prepare the factories for any impact that may come — and one of the things that we saw with Melissa, for a long time we weren’t sure where it was coming,” Green said at a sitting of the Jamaica Observer Press Club on December 16.
At different stages Melissa appeared headed towards Clarendon — home to the Jamalco bauxite refinery — before later projections shifted towards Kingston and then St Catherine, where the Ewarton operations are based.
Damage to the country due to Melissa has been estimated at US$8.8 billion — roughly 41 per cent of last year’s gross domestic product.
Green said the mining sector’s response helped prevent a potentially serious environmental incident, particularly given the heavy rainfall associated with the storm.
“Thankfully, despite having significant amount of rains, we have not heard of any pollution-related event, which is something that you’re very wary of,” he said, noting the risk of retention ponds overflowing during prolonged rainfall.
Green credited recent infrastructure improvements, particularly at Ewarton, for helping to avoid environmental damage during the storm.
“I think some of the work that has been done — especially in the Ewarton area to do additional retention ponds — that has worked, because we always worry about the recovery and we haven’t heard any complaints thus far,” he added.
While Hurricane Melissa caused only limited physical damage to the bauxite sector, Green said the process of restarting operations has been gradual. At the time of his update at the Observer Press Club, both major plants were operating at roughly 70 per cent capacity as they worked towards full production, each facing its own challenges.
Green also pointed to lingering vulnerabilities at Jamalco, which is still recovering from a major fire several years ago that damaged critical infrastructure.
Not all parts of the mining industry fared as well. Green said Jamaica’s industrial minerals sector, particularly limestone quarrying, suffered severe losses, with damage running into millions of dollars. He highlighted the near-destruction of one of the country’s largest quarries.
Extended electricity outages further slowed recovery efforts as many quarry operators struggled to restore power or secure alternative generation so as to resume production. As a result, Green said Jamaica should expect a downturn in the output of industrial minerals such as limestone, which plays a critical role in construction and infrastructure development.
On the other hand, he pointed to positive developments in parts of the sector, including the first shipment of boulders from Lydford in St Ann through Reynolds Pier, underscoring what he described as a “mixed bag” of outcomes following the storm.
Green stressed that the importance of mining to Jamaica extends far beyond production figures. He said the sector provides some of the highest average wages in the country and supports entire economic ecosystems in mining towns.
“Average pay in our mining sector is significant, and the spillover effect… when you think about the families, when you think about the ecosystem of trucks, of miners, of shops, of restaurants. You wanna see how important mining is? Just travel to Nain and see what the closure of Alpart has done,” he said.
He added that communities such as Mandeville would not exist at their current scale without the historical presence of mining, even as he acknowledged long-standing criticisms of the industry.
Addressing environmental concerns, the minister said the Government has been pushing mining companies to improve land reclamation and post-mining use, pointing to greenhouse farming projects established on former mined lands as a model for sustainable recovery.
“We’ve done that in about eight greenhouse clusters now, and what we do on those clusters is use the old pits… for water retention and use that water to feed greenhouses. We’re expanding that model and so I think we have to continue to show that even after mining, land can be put to use,” said Green.
Jamaica Observer
