And while it is a community issue caused by multiple factors ranging from wildfires to agricultural fires, who or what carries the greatest responsibility? And can that even be assessed? Is the smoke the result of corporate interests and ash producing agricultural practices or just caused by the dry season's widespread wildfires?
It's a question that requires a closer examination and tonight we're taking a look at the past and present harvesting procedures of industrial farmers in the valley of peace area to find out what, if anything, has gone so terribly wrong.
We've seen the smoke streaming off agricultural and forest fires in the west, and we've seen how it looked on the ground in Valley of Peace last Saturday - all products of a very dry, very active fire season. And while as the footage shows that no one culprit can be named, we know that Santander does have a clause in its environmental compliance plan to utilize Post Harvest Burning of its fields.
This is in stark contrast to their 2013 Environmental Impact Assessment which promised green cane harvesting that does not require burning.
The EIA says, quote, "The traditional burning of sugarcane before manually harvesting, as done in Belize, is not going to be done by Santander Group."
They listed the con's of this kind of burning, noting the lower air quality cause dry having ash in the air.
But, sometime after that they went to DOE to mo request post harvest burning and bodied their environmental compliance plan to insert a clause so that they can do post harvest burning without having to go back to DOE for approval every time. Speaking with their representative today, she said "The need to burn from time to time is a necessity exercise, and hence the DOE gives its approval with its regulations... Once it is complied with them, that is great.... I do personally believe that some discretion can be exercised and plans can be changed from time to time."
As for Valley of Peace Farms, their Environmental Compliance Plan does not speak to any burning except for when they first have to clear land to plant. As much as possible burning will be limited to branches burning should the need arise for the burning of post harvest residue, the developer shall submit the scope of this activity for each planned burning exercise."
And do they do it? According to Gilbert Canton Jr - the group of large farms in the area are ECP compliant.
There are reports of increased incidence of various respiratory illnesses throughout the west as a result of very smoky wildfire seasons.
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