The Impact of the Appleton Sugar Estate on Surface
Water quality in the Black River Basin, Jamaica

Nenpan Tunkuda

     Many large-scale plantations in Jamaica grow large amounts of sugarcane, and both sugar and rum exports have been an important sub-sector of the Jamaican economy ever since the seventeenth century. The Appleton Sugar Estate is the second largest producing estate in Jamaica with a total cane production of 248,584 tonnes as recent as 2004. It is located in the beautiful Nassau valley of St Elizabeth parish. The sugar estate plays an immense and largely adverse role on the local river network of the Black River basin, and is particularly damaging to the Black River itself. A major concern in the local community has been the pollution of the Black and Elim rivers due to activities from the rum factory and its associated sugar fields. Factory wastes such as dunder were previously dumped into sinkholes behind the factory without any remediation or control. Due to the geology of the basin, such waste would easily interact with the surface and groundwater flow systems thereby polluting the local hydrologic network.

     I spent last summer studying the effects of such practices on the quality of surface and groundwater in the basin, courtesy of funding from the USDA-funded FIU Agroecology Program. I am also learning about government regulation and incentives/programs that are designed to ameliorate such problems, and enhance Best Management Practices in the industry. One of such programs adopted by the Appleton Estate Distillery is a pilot project in the land application of dunder. The project uses dunder as fertilizer for cane fields as an alternative to traditionally disposing it in canals and sinkholes. The effects of this project are still being monitored and studied.

This project has been made possible by a funding support under the USDA CSREES ISE Grant Program.
USDA-CSREES Grant Number 2006-51160-03409.