Jaragua Hotel - Cancer Risk?

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
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This is an email with some photos I received from a concerned resident.
Apparently the 24x7 use of their generators causes lots of bad smelling smoke and dumps lots of black soot into the surrounding neighborhood.

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Photos showing the Jaragua Hotel generators polluting the air and surrounding neighborhood. Apartment buildings, schools and local medical clinics.

Continued complaints from local residents appear to be falling on death ears. The hotel has responded to complaints with the typical ?corporate spin? and no real concrete dates or plan of action to solve the problem.

The Jaragua Hotel is a USA owned hotel chain and would be closed down in the USA for this type of continued 24x7 environmental pollution.
Why don?t they have the same corporate values and consideration for local residents health here in the Dominican Republic?

One solution would be to follow the example of the hotel next door, which is connected to the local electrical supply and only uses their generator when there is no local electricity or in an emergency. This greatly reduces the amount of air borne pollution and suffering to local residents.

Does anybody know the best course of action to get them to do something and stop this continued abuse on local residents health?

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FireGuy

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Aug 21, 2002
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Robert said:
Continued complaints from local residents appear to be falling on death ears.

Robert this is either a nice subtle comment or a "slip" which would make Dr. Freud proud of you. Either way thanks for the chuckle in an otherwise serious thread.

Gregg
 

Jasper

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Jan 10, 2002
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nilka hotel, samana

we used to have a house behind nilka hotel in samana. she actually had the nerve to have her worker chip a hole through the cinderblock wall and stick the exhaust pipe into our property. every time we filled it with cement, they chipped a new hole. health dept wouldn't do anything as she was a pld member then (back in 1996-2000). it then lead to near fisticuffs, police coming, threats to boot me out of dr. and what did we do? samana's lights went out daily so we had the exhaust daily not to mention noise of the generator. point of my story is that we moved to las galeras but now my 8-year old has very bad asthma thanks to nilka.
 

Jersey Devil

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Jul 5, 2002
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One thing is......

not to patronize the Jaragua. Based on this information I will do my future gambling elsewhere. Thanks for sharing this Robert. Who is the parent company of the Jaragua ?


JD
 

Lechero

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Aug 11, 2004
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Marriott owns the hotel.
The casino is owned and run by a Dominican Company.
Most casinos in this country are leased from the Hotel.
I have spoken to many a pit boss, that is why you NEVER get comped a room or dinner. So you are not taking food out of Marriott's mouth by boycotting the casino.
 

Argo

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Aug 5, 2004
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Lechero said:
Marriott owns the hotel.
The casino is owned and run by a Dominican Company.
Most casinos in this country are leased from the Hotel.
I have spoken to many a pit boss, that is why you NEVER get comped a room or dinner. So you are not taking food out of Marriott's mouth by boycotting the casino.

Now that is odd, we always get RFB when playing at Jaragua?

A>
 

Argo

*** Sin Bin ***
Aug 5, 2004
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Lechero said:
Marriott owns the hotel.
The casino is owned and run by a Dominican Company.
Most casinos in this country are leased from the Hotel.
I have spoken to many a pit boss, that is why you NEVER get comped a room or dinner. So you are not taking food out of Marriott's mouth by boycotting the casino.

Now that is odd, we always get RFB when playing at Jaragua? They even hosted a comped B/Day party for a group of our friends

A>
 

Robert

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Jan 2, 1999
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FireGuy said:
Robert this is either a nice subtle comment or a "slip" which would make Dr. Freud proud of you. Either way thanks for the chuckle in an otherwise serious thread.

Gregg

I did a copy and paste, plus took out a few of the choice words!
Hehehe, it took me a while, now I know why they gave it that title.

It will be interesting to see if the Jaragua Hotel (Marriott) responds.
 

dulce

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Jan 1, 2002
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Jaragua is not the only business to have such smoke stacks which are bad for the environment. They are all over the country. I lived across the street from a resort in Jaun Dolio that sent black smoke out all day and night. My apartment was covered in black soot. Also, when I lived in Santo Domingo there was a small business next to my apartment that had a car exhaust pipe sticking out of thier rooftop. It was located right outside my bedroom window. This company had some sort of homemade generator for when the power went off. Actually, this was the time period of no power because of Hurricane George. If it was a rainy day the carbon monoxide filled my apartment. If is was a rainy day with dead air I left the aprtment so as not to get ill. I did get carbon monoxide posioning once and was very ill for a while. I am glad to see that someone is speaking up and maybe something will be done to help the environment and the air quality. Personally I was very complacent about my conditions and excepted it as a part of living in the DR.
 

Chirimoya

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Dec 9, 2002
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It is a universal problem but the Jaragua is being singled out because it has been running its generators 24/7, if I understand correctly. When the Bella Vista Mall opened a couple of years ago the residents nearby complained for the same reason.

Not that you would have been able to tell the difference during the latest spate of power cuts, when all the generators were on almost all the time.

In fact we seem to live between two zones, so when the power is on in one it is almost always off in the other so there is always a generator going anyway. I can live with the power cuts but I seriously worry about the effect on our respiratory health.
 

bienamor

Kansas redneck an proud of it
Apr 23, 2004
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breathing

Chirimoya said:
It is a universal problem but the Jaragua is being singled out because it has been running its generators 24/7, if I understand correctly. When the Bella Vista Mall opened a couple of years ago the residents nearby complained for the same reason.

Not that you would have been able to tell the difference during the latest spate of power cuts, when all the generators were on almost all the time.

In fact we seem to live between two zones, so when the power is on in one it is almost always off in the other so there is always a generator going anyway. I can live with the power cuts but I seriously worry about the effect on our respiratory health.

I seriously doubt that the smoke stacks from the Jaragua are any worse than the normal traffic up and down the Malecon. When the cars and trucks that are passing put out so much smoke that you can't see the other side of the road.
 

Toronto2inDR

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It?s amazing to me even after living here 2 years that I can?t get used to the fact that every motoconcho, every car, every generator and even the power plants themselves spew out all this black smoke. From Costambar you can get a great panoramic view of POP and about mid day the smoke rising from the city is crazy.

I?ve been in LA and seen the smog there?Even T.O. has a brown blanket during the summer but I didn?t find it so offensive walking in those cities. When will the government and the criticizes of this country stop letting other countries walk all over them and by setting up outdated power plants that could never be run anywhere in the first world or shipping cars/motos with out pollution controls etc.

If you question if it?s bad for your health?F@#k yeah it is!!! They?re about to shut down the coal burning plant in Etobicoke because of the health issues and that?s 100s of times cleaner then any power plant in the D.R. And who ever heard of burning diesel fuel to produce power anyway? That?s got to be one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity, never mind the smoke!

If you ask me, Mr. Prez should stop paying millions to these generators and set up a few thousand windmills (heard GE has a sale on), invest in a whole wake of solar panels and solar heat transfer units like they use in some parts of Europe. Also set up a mandatory trade in policy for the old 2 cycle motos to trade up to 4 cycle engines?And shoot the CEO?s of the Jap companies that keep sending these bikes here when a much cleaner and no too much more expensive option is available.
 

Marc

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Stack emissions

I imagine that most of this is from diesel generators, and not auxillary or other oil fired boilers. Diesel combustion can have a near invisible exhaust at steady state, if the generators are properly maintained. Take locomotives for example - you don't see plumes like this coming out of them, at least not in the first world. Getting rid of plume does not get rid of the harmful emissions, but the emissions are no worse than a bus or the million conchos on the streets.

Proper tuning can cure this bad looking exhaust and make it less harmful - not to mention far easier to look at. Unfortunately, I wish them all the luck in the world trying to tune these things with Dominican mechanics.

Oil fired boilers in PoP can also be cleaned up with proper tuning. Again, skill comes into play, as does some expense.

m
 
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Chirimoya

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Dec 9, 2002
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result?

In Saturday's Diario Libre there was a short item reporting that the environmental authorities have now ordered the hotel to turn off its generator. The report is very short on detail but it mentions the effects of the noise and fumes on the residents of Condominio Gabriella III in Gazcue.
 

juanita

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Apr 22, 2004
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From El Nacional

Reenv?an causa ejecutivos del Jaragua 1:10 PM

El juez interino del Primer Juzgado de la Instrucci?n del Distrito Nacional, doctor Rom?n Berroa Hiciano, reenvi? para el pr?ximo viernes la solicitud de medida de coerci?n, impedimento de salida, contra dos ejecutivos del Hotel Jaragua sometidos a la justicia por el ruido que ocasiona la planta de emergencia a los vecinos del lugar.

El magistrado tuvo que reenviar el proceso para reiterar la citaci?n al imputado Nelson Riveros, quien por segunda ocasi?n no compareci? al tribunal.

La medida de coerci?n contra los ejecutivos del Hotel fue planteada por el procurador general de Medio Ambiente, doctor David La Hoz.

Ayer s?lo asisitieron Fernando Ritchie y los abogados Luis Julio Jim?nez, Francisco Alvarez y Marcos Pe?a Rodr?guez, en representaci?n del Hotel Jaragua.

La solicitud de medida de coerci?n fue reenviada el pasado s?bado para ayer martes pero tampoco fue posible ventilarla porque Riveros, no compareci?.

Riveros no compareci? al tribunal a pesar de que fue notificado mediante acto de alguacil n?mero 156/04, del ministerial Daniel Pozo Gonz?lez.