Member of Parliament for St Catherine West Central Dr Christopher Tufton has suggested that an independent review be done of the technical study used by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) to approve the permit for the 71-acre expansion of the burial grounds.

Dr Carlton Campbell, chief environmentalist, carried out a technical study for Dovecot which concluded that the underground water would not be affected because of the measures being undertaken, such as putting six inches of limestone at the bottom of the vaults and the construction of testing wells downstream to periodically test the water.

However, Tufton was not happy when he found out that there was no system in place to monitor the water sources.

It is alarming that NEPA does not have a monitoring system for the assessment of the water,” Tufton said, after Gregory Bennett, director of application management at NEPA, revealed that the entity did not have a monitoring system in place.

“There is a high burden on the operators of the facility to ensure that all the criteria are met, and right now there is a lack of confidence in the technical study and the implementation of the operation seem to be in breach of the permit,” said Tufton, after learning that three test wells that should have been constructed to periodically test the water for pollutants were not done.