EMA sets noise rules for Carnival 2026

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty has start­ed im­ple­ment­ing noise man­age­ment mea­sures for the 2026 car­ni­val sea­son un­der the Noise Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Rules, 2001, as amend­ed.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Au­thor­i­ty said the mea­sures ap­ply to car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties and large-scale events and are aimed at man­ag­ing noise in res­i­den­tial ar­eas. The EMA said the ini­tia­tives form part of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ap­proach to noise pol­lu­tion and cul­tur­al events.

The Au­thor­i­ty said res­i­dents have raised con­cerns over noise gen­er­at­ed dur­ing Car­ni­val over sev­er­al years. In re­sponse, the EMA has ad­just­ed its Noise Vari­a­tion ap­pli­ca­tion, mon­i­tor­ing and en­force­ment process­es.

The EMA said no­tices of in­tent to ap­ply for a Noise Vari­a­tion are now avail­able on its web­site. Mem­bers of the pub­lic may sub­mit feed­back through a Pub­lic Com­ment Form host­ed on the site.

Event pro­mot­ers are now re­quired to sub­mit event lo­ca­tion maps and site plans. The doc­u­ments must show the lo­ca­tion of res­i­den­tial ar­eas, site lay­outs and pro­posed noise mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures. The EMA said this in­for­ma­tion will be used in as­sess­ments of Noise Vari­a­tion ap­pli­ca­tions.

The Au­thor­i­ty has is­sued an Event Vari­a­tion In­for­ma­tion Guide and a Quick Ref­er­ence Guide out­lin­ing re­quire­ments for Noise Vari­a­tion ap­pli­ca­tions. The guides ad­dress event map­ping, res­i­dent no­ti­fi­ca­tion and noise abate­ment mea­sures and are avail­able on the EMA web­site.

For events in ar­eas with pre­vi­ous noise com­plaints or near sen­si­tive lo­ca­tions, the EMA said ad­di­tion­al re­quire­ments ap­ply, in­clud­ing res­i­dent no­ti­fi­ca­tion and a noise man­age­ment plan.

The EMA said it will fo­cus mon­i­tor­ing on events with a his­to­ry of com­plaints or breach­es. Where breach­es are iden­ti­fied, En­vi­ron­men­tal Po­lice Unit of­fi­cers will work with event or­gan­is­ers and the Se­nior Di­vi­sion­al Of­fi­cer as­signed to the event. En­force­ment ac­tion may fol­low.

The Au­thor­i­ty said it will con­tin­ue col­lect­ing com­plaint da­ta and work­ing with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son.