Dominican Republic town announces 1st major protest against coal-fired plants

Bani, Dominican Republic.- The population of Paya township in Peravia Province (south), which would be the community most affected by the ash from the coal-fired plants being built at Punta Catalina, has decided to hit the streets this Thursday, February 12, starting 4pm, to demand water for all of Paya.

The Paya Development and Defense Committee (CODEPA) coordinates the protest support by the Peravia Province Health, Environment and Agriculture Defense Committee, the Marco A. Cabral Canal Rescue Committee, the Banilejos Farmers Federation (FECABA), the Popular Bloc and other Paya, Bani and Peravia Province organizations.

Women, men and children will gather Thursday in front of Dulceria Las Marias with tanks, buckets, empty jugs and pots to express their rebuke of the lack of water for human consumption in Paya, where there the Burns and sectors such as Paya Abajo and Los Quemados, which haven’t gotten a drop of water in their homes for more than one year.

“While the state spends hundreds of millions of dollars in a coal plant to crucify the people of Paya, various community sectors don’t receive water for not having a few thousand pesos to repair Pay’s aqueduct and because the government has yet to finish the Provincial aqueduct where they have squandered more than five billion pesos and now turns out that not a single penny appears to conclude it,” the organization said.