WHEN YOU have been in the news business for as long as I have been you learn to laugh at yourself and things around you as a means of maintaining your sanity.
Last week produced some very interesting moments to smile widely – even though the stories behind them was quite serious.
First there was the decision by workers at the South Coast Sewage Treatment Plant to down tools. They were protesting the pungent odour coming from the facility. The union representative from the Barbados Workers’ Union described the smell as “unbearable”.
Now I know that health and safety at the workplace is a major issue these days and every employer has a legally enforceable duty to ensure that his or her workers are operating in a healthy environment, but I kept asking myself: When you work in a sewage plant what do you expect to smell?
So you are out of work and a friend tells you he can get you a job at the sewage plant. You submit your application, are invited to an interview, hired and start to work — do your expect the surroundings to smell like the Avon factory?
Okay, that might be a little harsh; the management of the BWA has a duty to ensure the equipment is working and when they fail consistently to do so the workers have a duty to speak out, but at the end of the day a sewage plant can only smell like sewage. At least that’s my opinion.
Then there was the story of oil floating off the Arawak Cement Plant in St Lucy.
On that day we got calls from people sailing off the coast, from fishermen on the beach and from watersports people.
Everyone spoke of this “large” slick. In the early stages the calls said it appeared to have come from the area of the Arawak jetty, but later it was reported to be heading in the direction of the jetty.
When reporters checked, they were told there had been a “small” accident at the plant and about “a gallon” of oil had fallen into the water.
Again my face broke into the broadest smile possible. I though: Arawak had performed a scientific miracle that would possibly eliminate the island’s large fuel import bill. They had managed to turn a gallon of oil into the large slick everyone was noticing.
But thanks to the environmental watchdog, it appeared to have come from somewhere else. I’ll keep my smile as I wait to hear the announcement of the non-Arawak source.
