Tuna fishery stink in Wewak is ‘gross’

Despite the risk of being physically attacked, I intend to start publicly querying certain negative changes continuing to take place in Wewak and offer, when possible, practical solutions. I am mainly doing this out of concern for future generations.
Leading Kreer landowner Francis Kuru’fher recently advised the people of Papua New Guinea through the media about the “unbearable” and “stinky smell” emanating from the South Seas Tuna Corporation factory in Wewak town; which “pollutes Wewak’s air zone daily”.
“How long should this continue?” Kuruf’her, a businessman and former political candidate, was reported as asking.
Kuru’fher’s concern is no exaggeration.
The truth is that the smell is so gross that it has made me want to throw up and become angry every time I have had to breathe it in.
I am sure thousands of people in Wewak, who have to drive or walk or work near the tuna factory, have reacted in exactly the same way.
Just imagine being forced to smell the putrid stench of dead, rotten fish intestines, flesh, skin & bones - every day, morning, noon and night for years – basically like the landowners and hundreds of Kreer residents have had to do purely for the sake of development and someone else’s profits.
The only occasional respite for people in Kreer is when the wind blows the foul air past the nearby tourist resort into Meni Beach and the central part of town – located about five minutes drive from Kreer Beach, and or when it drifts across to the kids at St Mary’s school at Wirui and the squatters – sitting on the edge of the Malenki’s traditional land.
It also makes me angry to constantly go without tap water every time the factory needs to fill up its huge water tank and our small business suffers, despite dutifully paying high water bills for a service that is often non-existent.
The State, as well as the owners of the tuna company, should be held accountable for any disease, distress and or loss of income caused as a result of pollution and deprivation of basic rights.
Fresh tuna in Japan has been known to sell for up to US$10,000 per tuna while the tuna factory employees, who work without hand gloves or masks, are getting K30-K50 a week for hard, dirty labour.
Even if the factory management can fix their pollution problem through the reported installation of a bio-filter, the people of Kreer should be entitled to compensation for years of suffering from forced inhalation of putrid smelling micro-organisms.

Sonja
via email
ESP.