Chester Castle residents still hoping for gold

Residents of Chester Castle, Hanover, are demanding answers from the Government over the recent discovery of what some still believe is gold in the community.

"As Chester Castle residents, we suspect that something fishy is going on. I don't know if is jack fish or sprat fish or herring fish, whatever fish, but something is going on behind our backs and we need to know," said Debbie Cole. While holding some of the shiny rocks that she mined from the now famous pit, Cole said persons have been selling their pieces.

"People deh come all bout from town, Ochi Rios, all about a come buy the something seh a gold, or if a nuh gold a something valuable, and them nah pay change for it. Them paying big money for it, so I want to know what it is," she demanded. Experts have said the 'gold' is actually pyrite, a mineral. Cole said that ever since the alleged gold find two weeks ago in the soak-away pit, no government official has told them what substance they found.

"We need somebody to come and test it right here and whatever mek wi know straight up what is going on, that if wi fi get wi full share, wi get wi full share," she said.

When THE WEEKEND STAR visited the community on Wednesday, new barbed wire fencing was erected around most of the property. Several residents stated that they have ceased digging, and are willing to assist in repacking the pit, but not until they have got official words from the Mining Ministry.

But Roy Nicholson, the commissioner of mines, said a team visited the area, took samples and confirmed that the rocks were not gold.

"It is surety that it is not gold," he told THE WEEKEND STAR.

"We would have done the physical tests already and we would have communicated that ... actually to the owner of the property," he said. "So the team went with the police and samples were collected." He also said that pyrite carries no value.