SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth -- A noxious dust menace to neighbouring communities and pressure from State-run monitoring agencies, has forced the management of the mothballed alumina plant Alpart to flood the red mud waste disposal area at Warminster with thousands of gallons of water daily.

But there is a downside. Over the last two weeks, the situation has also forced Alpart to cut back on the release of trucked water to communities in southern St Elizabeth at a time of one of the worst droughts in recent memory.

In normal circumstances, private water truckers would be allowed to fill their vehicles at the Alpart water loading bay over a period of eight hours each day. But constrained by the need to divert water to the 300-hectare red mud waste lake as well as to residents in the immediate vicinity of the plant, Alpart is now restricting the time window allotted to private truckers to four hours.

"Because we only have four hours to line up and load the truck, we can now only carry one load of water every other day," trucker Huntley Simpson, fondly called 'Banga' by his colleagues, told the Observer. Simpson said truckers were transporting water for a fee, to residents in parched communities, all over south and central St Elizabeth and south Manchester.

"We carrying water all the way to Alligator Pond, Cross Keys, Plowden, Ballards Valley, Southfield, Santa Cruz," he said.

When the Observer visited the water loading bay last week, the allotted four hours for loading had already passed. Fifteen trucks were lined up waiting to be filled the following morning.

An Alpart source speaking on condition of anonymity was unable to say when the time restrictions would be relaxed. "I would imagine we have to make sure the situation at the waste disposal site is stable and that the immediate community gets enough water. Also we have to bear in mind that the extent of the drought means we have to be extra careful with water anyhow," the source said.

The provision of water from its wells at Pepper, just below St Elizabeth's eastern border with Manchester is traditionally part of Alpart's public service to neighbouring communities. The service continued following the closure of the alumina plant last year and the laying off of hundreds of workers for reasons related to the global economic recession and high energy costs.

The Alpart management came under intense pressure last week following news that clouds of dust from the red mud lake - powered by high winds -- were being dumped on communities such as Myersville and Buena Vista just west of the lake. Red mud lakes routinely found close to alumina processing plants are the dumping areas for waste slurry from the industrial process. Local observers say that in the case of Alpart and Manchester's Windalco Kirkvine plant the absence of fresh slurry from the idle plants combined with the long drought has served to dry the lakes necessitating consistent and plentiful flows of water to prevent dusting.

Last week residents showed the Observer dusty walls and soiled clothing as evidence of the dust nuisance. "This is caustic soda dirt, it not going to come out," one woman said while holding up a soiled garment. Pearl Wint of Buena Vista dramatised the situation by showing the Observer crew a small plastic bag with red dirt -- presumably blown on the wind from the red mud lake -- which she said she swept from her verandah.

Residents who say they want compensation from Alpart also pointed to health issues. They say the red dust had resulted in clogged sinuses and breathing problems for many. Hazel Caine of Buena Vista drew attention to what appeared to be a swelling of the neck to illustrate the situation.

Annoyed residents wanted to know how Alpart could have allowed the red mud lake to become a dust bowl, especially since a similar situation had arisen at Kirkvine in January/February.

"They should have learnt from what happen in Manchester," one woman said.

But the Observer's Alpart source said it was precisely because the dormant plant was "seeking to balance" between the water needs of the wider community and the mud lake that the problem arose in the first place.

A week ago, the majority of the lake when viewed from the Warminster main road seemed well watered, with sprinklers going full blast and water trucks also on the scene.

Alpart said in a news release that it had already taken and "will be taking further steps to enhance and control" the dust from the mud lake. The measures include the "g****ing" of the lake's surface and the provision of additional sprinklers.

In its release informing of an Enforcement Notice on Alpart, the state-run environmental agency, National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) said Alpart would be required "to provide weekly reports of its monitoring and sprinkling activities at the mud lake for the next three weeks. Alpart has also been instructed to install additional sprinklers and expand its network of Dust Monitoring Stations at the facility".

NEPA said representatives from the Water Resources Authority, Jamaica Bauxite Institute and the Ministry of Health-Environment Health Unit also attended a recent meeting with Alpart officials.